BR  115  .W6  M35  1915 
Macfarland,  Charles  S. 
Christian  service  and  the 
modern  world 


Christian  Service  and 
The   Modern  World 


BOOKS  BY 

Charles  S.  Macfarland 


The  Spirit  Christlike, 

The  Infinite  Affection. 

Jesus  and  the  Prophets. 

Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service. 

Christian  Service  and  the  Modern 
World. 


Books  Edited  and  in  Part  Written  by  the  Author 

The    Christian   Ministry   and  the 
Social  Order. 

Christian  Unity  at  Work. 

The  Churches  of  the  Federal  Council. 


Christian  Service  and 
The  Modern  World 


/ 


B; 

CHARLES  S.VMACFARLAND 


New    York           Chicago 

Toronto 

Fleming      H.      Revell 

Company 

London                 and 

Edinburgh 

Copyright,  191 5,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


To  the  Students  of 

The  School  of  Theology  of  Southwestern 
University,  Georgetown,  Texas 

The    Biblical    Institute    of    Vanderbilt 
University,  and 

The  School  of  Theology  at  Fayette,  Mo. 

to  whom  these  messages  were  first  given, 
and  with  whom  I  have  held  helpful  con- 
ference upon  these  themes 


Contents 

Introduction 9 

I.  The  Great  Physician  and  His  Healing 

Ministry 15 

II.  The  Church  and  Modern  Industry       .       33 

III.  The  Consolidation  of  Conscience        .      60 

IV.  The  Federal  Unity  of  the  Churches  a 

Social  Obligation   ....       87 

V.  The  New  Internationalism  a   Funda- 

mental in  Religious  Education       .     114 


Introduction 

THESE  messages  have  been  given  to  the 
School  of  Theology  of  Southwestern 
University,  the  Biblical  Institute  of  Van- 
derbilt  University,  the  School  of  Theology  at 
Fayette,  Mo.,  and  on  other  similar  occasions. 
They  have  been  prepared  in  such  time  as  could 
be  taken  from  those  administrative  duties  which 
necessarily  limit  both  adequacy  of  thought  and 
literary  preparedness. 

These  utterances  are  not  set  forth  as  compre- 
hensive of  the  Gospel  message.  They  are  limited 
to  only  one  or  two  aspects  of  that  message  or  to 
one  or  two  expressions.  The  author  had  once 
preached  a  sort  of  trial  sermon  before  the  students 
in  the  chapel  of  the  Theological  Seminary,  and 
was  rebuked  by  one  of  his  fellow-students,  who 
stated  that  the  sermon  had  not  discussed  the 
Atonement  and  several  other  cardinal  doctrines 
which  he  proceeded  to  name.  The  answer  of 
the  embryo  preacher  was  that  he  expected  to 
preach  several  more  sermons. 

The  author  has,  however,  in  this  instance,  in 
previous  volumes  considered  certain  primary  and 
constitutional  features  of  Christian  faith  and  ex- 
perience.    The  knowledge  of  such  former  utter- 

9 


io     Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ances  as  these  would  be  essential  if  one  were  to 
attempt  to  analyze  the  author's  experience  and 
faith. 

"  At  heart  all  human  life  is  spiritual,  and  while 
the  Gospel  must  glorify  the  fruits  of  the  spirit  it 
must  not  forget  the  spirit  itself.  There  is  a 
tendency  to-day  to  obscure  this  truth  and  to 
overmagnify  environment  over  the  inward  life. 
The  Kingdom  of  God  will  not  appear  simply  by 
doubling  men's  wages  with  no  reference  to  con- 
scientious service.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  will 
not  come  through  shorter  hours  of  labor,  without 
regard  to  the  moral  uses  of  leisure.  Social  re- 
generation will  not  be  performed  by  building 
better  houses  if  there  is  no  concern  for  better 
men  and  women  and  homes  within  those  houses. 

"  At  the  same  time,  while  the  life  is  more  than 
meat,  we  must  also  remember  that  the  meat  is 
necessary  to  the  life.  Our  social  reformers  are 
right  in  reaching  up  towards  the  heavenly 
through  the  earthly.  While,  with  the  one  hand, 
we  seek  to  transform  the  hearts  and  characters  of 
men,  we  must,  with  the  other,  seek  to  gain  for 
them  human  justice. 

"  But  it  is  true  that  sometimes  a  larger  moral 
existence  and  a  deeper  spiritual  sense  would 
mean  less  necessity  for  philanthropy,  and  all 
economic  reformations  must  have  their  roots  in 
moral,  spiritual  impulse.  Our  modern  danger  is 
that  of  divorcing  social  betterment  from  spiritual 


Introduction  1 1 

life,  whereas  the  one  ought  to  be  the  expression 
of  the  other.  No  social  program  will  ultimately 
avail  that  is  not  expressed  in  terms  of  the  spirit. 
The  inward  and  the  outward  life  must  reflect  each 
other.  Our  modern  social  movements  will  be 
good  and  abiding  only  as  they  are  the  revelation 
of  the  divine  mind,  as  '  In  Him  they  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being.' 

"  One  weakness  of  our  social  reformers  is  that 
of  substituting  the  circumference  for  the  centre, 
of  dealing  in  effects  without  sufficient  thought 
of  ultimate  causes.  So  while  religion  without 
humanity  is  sad,  it  is  equally  sad  to  have  a 
humanity  without  religion.  Such  a  humanity  is 
transitory  and  specious.  Our  real  social  leaders 
to-day  are  not  those  men  and  women  who,  in 
their  blind  zeal,  would  substitute  humanity  for 
religion,  who  would  displace  the  Christian  re- 
ligion by  the  club  and  social  settlement,  and  who 
neglect  spiritual  truth  in  the  supposed  interest  of 
human  comfort.  Our  real  leaders  are  those  men 
who  have  a  profound  faith  in  a  God  who  loves 
men,  and  whose  love  of  mankind  is  an  expres- 
sion of  their  faith  in  the  Eternal. 

"  Jesus  is  the  sovereign  example  of  a  well-bal- 
anced mind  and  heart.  He  fed,  He  healed,  He 
comforted  men,  He  rebuked  the  rich  with  great 
severity,  but  He  was  always  saying  that  the  life 
was  more  than  the  meat.  He  was  always  lead- 
ing men  towards  the  fulfillment  of  their  life  in 


12    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

God.  His  whole  life  is  a  picture  of  the  blending 
of  religious  faith  with  human  sympathy,  two 
elements  which  in  Him  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether and  which  by  man  should  not  be  rent 
asunder. 

"  Our  social  movements,  our  philanthropic  en- 
terprises, our  economic  betterments  and  other 
institutions,  instead  of  taking  the  place  of  Gos- 
pel, pulpit,  truth  and  religion,  can  never  endure, 
can  never  be  more  than  the  outward  passing 
semblance  of  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  without 
some  institution,  some  spiritual  school  which  is 
ever  teaching  men  that  salvation  does  not  rest 
in  political  economy  or  in  social  enterprise. 
Above'  all  these  mansions  of  the  earth  there  is  a 
house  not  made  with  hands. 

"The  downward  reach  may,  without  the  upward 
look,  mean  the  depression  of  hope.  Sympathy 
with  human  needs  is  vain  without  communion 
with  divine  grace.  He  who  would  bring  the 
light  of  the  world  to  the  darkness  of  man  must 
possess  the  riches  of  God  as  well  as  witness  the 
poverty  of  the  race.  There  can  be  no  nether 
springs  of  service  without  the  upper  springs  of 
inspiration.  None  of  us  can  uplift  even  himself, 
how  much  less  can  he  uplift  others.  Thus  every 
one  of  us  stands  between  the  appeal  of  the  things 
above  him  and  of  those  beneath  him,  between 
the  human  reality  and  the  divine  ideal,  between 
the  discipline  of  duty  and  the  peace  of  faith.     It 


Introduction  13 

is  sad  to  see  men  and  women  in  religion  trying 
to  save  themselves  and  forgetting  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  except  perhaps  their  own  charmed  and 
chosen  circle.  It  is  just  as  sad  to  find  men  try- 
ing to  save  the  world  without  any  vision  beyond 
their  own  horizon  and  with  no  strength  stronger 
than  their  own.  We  are  living  in  both  eternity 
and  time,  we  must  seek  both  the  geistes-leben 
and  the  welt-anschauung,  to  use  Eucken's  classic 
terms. 

"  In  the  religion  of  Jesus  we  find  the  sense  of 
finality,  of  ultimate  reality,  and  thus  of  last  re- 
sort. The  knowledge,  the  sense  and  the  reality 
of  the  infinite  lie  behind  our  moral  universe. 
Human  life,  without  this  consciousness,  is  vain 
and  void.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  without 
meaning  and  interpretation,  unless  with  the 
psalmist  we  can  say,  '  In  Thy  light  do  we  see 
light.'  No  human  problem  receives  its  satis- 
factory answer  except  by  the  light  of  the  divine. 
As  the  psalmist  put  it :  '  Not  until  I  went  into 
the  sanctuary  of  God  did  I  understand.' 

" '  He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  and 
continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God. 

" '  And  when  it  was  day  .  .  .  He  came 
down  .  .  .  and  stood  in  the  plain  .  .  . 
there  went  virtue  out  of  Him,  and  healed  them 
all.' 

"Thus,  with  the  Master,  he  who  does  the  work 
of  an  unselfish  ministry  in  the  daylight  hours 


14    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

must  find  his  way  back,  at  eventide,  to  the 
sources  of  his  refuge  and  his  strength ;  there  is 
no  lasting,  perfected  social  service  without  its 
commensurate  spiritual  culture,  and  the  one  will 
be  as  real  and  abiding  as  the  other  is  deep  and 
reverent." 

The  following  chapters  set  forth  simply  certain 
social  expressions  of  Christian  experience,  and 
they  assume  that  that  ulterior  experience  is  vital, 
personal  and  profound.  Three  pressing  oppor- 
tunities and  obligations  are  selected — Human 
Health,  Modern  Industry  and  Christian  Inter- 
nationalism, calling  for  the  solidarity  of  Christian 
Conscience  and  impelling  the  united  influence 
and  the  cooperative  action  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America. 

Charles  S.  Macfarland. 

October  i,  ig  ij. 


THE  GREAT  PHYSICIAN  AND  HIS  HEALING 
MINISTRY 

THE  Christian  faith,  both  in  its  form  and  in 
its  institutions,  has  always  been  militant 
in  varying  degree.  This  militant  spirit 
is  now  finding  significant  expression  in  the  new 
social  impulse  of  Christian  faith,  and  perhaps  its 
most  concrete  declaration  is  what  is  known  as  the 
social  creed  of  the  Churches  unified  in  behalf  of 
Protestant  Christianity,  set  forth  by  the  Federal 
Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America. 

The  critics  of  this  social  platform,  I  am  con- 
vinced, have  in  the  main  been  hostile  because  it 
was  the  attack  of  the  Churches,  in  behalf  of  man- 
kind, upon  private  and  selfish  interests,  and  while 
it  is  true  that  some  of  these  censors  have  been 
honest  in  their  concern  lest  social  service  should 
impair  the  interests  of  the  spiritual  life,  too  many 
of  the  critics  have,  knowingly,  or  unknowingly, 
let  loose  their  strictures  because  this  social  creed, 
demanding  equal  rights  and  justice  for  all  men  in 
all  stations  of  life,  has  simply  found  the  vulner- 
able points  of  moral  sensibility.  In  our  human 
nature,  resentment  is  the  precursor  of  a  deepen- 
ing conscience. 

Of  the  sixteen  articles  of  this  social  faith,  many 
*5 


16    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

are  frankly  in  the  interest  of  physical  health. 
Thus  "  it  seems  to  us,"  says  the  Federal  Council, 
"  that  the  Churches  must  stand  " 

"  For  the  protection  of  the  family  by  the 
single  standard  of  purity,  uniform  divorce 
laws,  proper  regulation  of  marriage,  and 
proper  housing  ; 

"  For  the  fullest  possible  development  for 
every  child,  especially  by  the  provision  of 
proper  education  and  recreation  ; 

"  For  the  abolition  of  child  labor  ; 

"  For  such  regulation  of  the  conditions  of 
toil  for  women  as  shall  safeguard  the  physical 
and  moral  health  of  the  community  ; 

"  For  the  protection  of  the  worker  from 
dangerous  machinery,  occupational  diseases, 
and  mortality ; 

"  For  suitable  provision  for  the  old  age  of 
the  workers,  and  for  those  incapacitated  by 
injury ; 

"  For  a  release  from  employment  one  day 
in  seven  ; 

"  For  the  gradual  and  reasonable  reduc- 
tion of  the  hours  of  labor  to  the  lowest 
practicable  point,  and  for  that  degree  of 
leisure  for  all  which  is  a  condition  of  the 
highest  human  life." 

All  of  these  articles  may  also  be  comprehended 
in  one  other,  which  reads, 

"  The  Churches  must  stand  for  the  conservation 
of  health." 


The  Great  Physician  17 

When  these  united  Churches  spoke  these  words 
they  seemed  new,  if  not  strange ;  and  yet,  strangely 
enough,  we  have  here,  if  it  be  reversal,  merely  a 
reversal  in  significant  degree  to  both  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  Gospels. 

For  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  have  whole  chapters,  anddn- 
deed,  whole  books,  on  the  conservation  of  health. 
The  first  four  books  of  the  Law  of  Israel  consti- 
tute the  story  of  the  war  on  disease — a  war  which 
was  commanded  and  led  by  Jehovah  and  His 
chosen  captains  ;  and  to  the  effectiveness  of  this 
warfare  is  due,  in  no  small  measure,  the  marvel- 
lous permanency  of  the  Jewish  race. 

Not  only  is  the  conservation  of  health  a  part, 
and  a  large  part,  of  the  Hebrew  code  of  ethics, 
not  only  are  divine  rewards  and  punishments 
meted  in  accordance  with  these  laws  of  health, 
but  they  were  also  embodied  in  the  very  ritual 
and  worship  of  Israel.  Long  before  Paul  spoke 
the  word,  the  Jew  was  teaching  God's  command, 
that  men  should  make  of  their  bodies  a  living 
sacrifice  holy  and  acceptable  to  the  Infinite. 

Some  of  our  religious  leaders  are  battling  for 
the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
and  surely  if  they  themselves  believe  the  faith  for 
which  they  fight,  they  must  be  willing  that  the 
Churches  should  take  their  part  of  leadership  in 
the  battle  for  human  health. 

Yet,  to   my  sorrow,  I    have    more  than  once 


18    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

heard  religious  and  ecclesiastical  leaders  speak  of 
anti-tuberculosis  campaigns  and  similar  great 
movements  in  terms  of  contempt.  Others  have 
spent  much  time  discussing  the  question  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  member  of  a  Christian  Church 
should  proceed  with  these  activities  in  his  capacity 
as  a  citizen  or  as  a  churchman.  Is  not  this  ques- 
tion academic  ?  As  a  practical  matter  the  citizen, 
if  he  is  a  Christian,  cannot  separate  himself  from 
his  church  in  discharging  his  civic  duties,  and  the 
attempt  to  do  so  invites  the  greater  danger  of 
separating  morals  and  religion. 

Jesus  divested  the  Jewish  religion  of  much  of 
its  formalism.  He  seems  even  to  abrogate  some 
of  its  laws  by  their  fulfillment,  but  we  do  not  find 
Him  finding  any  fault  with  the  Hebrew  war  upon 
disease. 

While  the  Gospels  give  us  no  story  as  to  the 
bodily  appearance  of  the  Master  of  mankind,  the 
impression  which  we  have  is  surely  that  Jesus 
had  a  healthy  physical  life.  We  read  many 
stories  of  His  weariness,  but  none  of  enfeebling 
sickness.  He  plucked  the  corn  upon  the  Sabbath 
day  in  the  interest  of  physical  health,  and  said 
that  man  was  lord  of  the  Sabbath,  and  that  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  that  David  was 
even  justified  in  using  the  elements  of  sacred 
worship  for  the  conservation  of  human  life.  It 
would  appear  also  that  the  followers  of  Jesus 
were   healthy  men,  and   the   utterances   of   the 


The  Great  Physician  19 

Master,  both  rhetorically  and  explicitly,  without 
exception,  breathe  the  spirit  and  have  the  charm 
of  a  wholesome  physical  life. 

But  more  significant  still  than  this  is  the  heal- 
ing ministry  of  Jesus.  Cut  out  from  the  synoptic 
Gospels  the  story  of  the  physical  ministrations 
of  the  Master  and,  quantitatively,  there  is  not 
much  left.  If  there  are  those  among  our 
Churches  who  would  stay  this  great  crusade  for 
health,  they  must  first  turn  ruthless  higher  critics 
and  stamp  as  errors  and  interpolations  many 
passages  in  the  Bible.  Jesus  seems  to  be  stop- 
ping every  moment  to  bring  back  some  sick 
body  to  the  glow  of  health.  And  He  makes  no 
artificial  distinctions  between  the  healing  of  the 
soul  and  the  healing  of  the  body.  There  even 
seems  to  be  a  certain  identification  between 
physical  health  and  spiritual  life.  And  it  is 
interesting  to  remember  that  the  one  Gospel 
which  records  this  human  ministry  of  Jesus  in 
the  fullest  detail  and  with  the  finest  emphasis 
was  written  by  Luke,  the  beloved  physician  to 
the  bodies  of  men. 

A  religion  which,  in  service,  makes  contemp- 
tuous distinctions  between  the  helping  of  men's 
souls  and  the  helping  of  men's  bodies  and  would 
neglect  the  one  in  the  supposed  interest  of  the 
other,  finds  no  warrant  in  the  spirit  and  atti- 
tude of  Jesus.  We  have  sincere  religious  men 
to-day    who    are    always    in   danger    of    losing 


20    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

their  sight  of  the  man  in  their  search  for  his 
soul,  but  in  this  they  lose  the  pathway  of  their 
Lord. 

This  same  spirit  and  attitude  of  Jesus  prevails 
throughout  all  the  New  Testament.  The  Gospel 
of  Paul  and  the  apostles  is  that  of  the  physician 
of  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul.  Thus  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  Scriptures  we  find  a  sense 
of  the  sanctity  of  health. 

No  wonder  then  that  the  early  Church  caught 
this  spirit,  and  that  its  monasteries  became  upon 
every  wayside  and  every  mountain  top  a  symbol, 
not  only  of  spiritual  retreat,  but  also  of  physical 
regeneration.  We  have  a  good  many  waiting 
critics  who  are  always  ready  to  cudgel  the 
Church  and  take  a  whack  at  the  pulpit,  and 
who  are  eternally  proclaiming  the  dismal  failure 
of  the  Church  to  meet  her  social  tasks.  And  yet, 
throughout  all  her  history,  the  Church  of  Christ 
has  been  the  healer  of  men's  bodies  as  well  as 
the  savior  of  their  souls. 

There  are  no  servants  of  humanity  who  have 
larger  opportunity  to  show  forth  the  spirit  of  the 
Master  than  the  physician  and  the  nurse.  One 
of  the  most  touching  pictures  in  all  the  galleries 
of  Europe  is  that  by  Luke  Fildes,  in  the  London 
Gallery,  of  the  physician,  with  his  serious,  anx- 
ious face,  bending  over  the  form  of  the  little 
child.  There  are  few  finer  symbols  of  the  spirit 
of  the   Great   Physician   than   in   those   of  our 


The  Great  Physician  21 

number  who  lead  the  warfare  upon  disease  and 
who  manifest  the  one  great  emblem  of  Christian 
discipleship,  the  sacrifice  of  self. 

Some  persons  lose  sight  of  the  source  because 
the  stream  itself  has  become  so  large. 

But  now,  it  must  be  candidly  admitted,  the 
Christian  Church  does  face  a  new  task.  She 
may  go  back  to  the  physical  ministry  of  Israel, 
but  she  must  not  go  back  to  Israel's  therapeutics. 
Her  new  crusade  is  that  of  the  engineer  as  well 
as  of  the  physician  and  the  nurse.  She  has  al- 
ways dealt  in  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and  has  in- 
spired that  spirit  with  the  effects  of  disease,  but 
now  she  is  called  to  the  larger  task  of  a  warfare 
against  its  hidden,  subtle  causes.  To  avow  that 
the  Church  may  be  the  inspiration  for  the  heal- 
ing of  disease  but  not  the  spiritual  force  to  lead 
men  in  their  holy  fight  against  its  causes  is  the 
same  as  to  aver  that  we  may  reform  a  drunkard 
but  may  not  war  upon  the  devilish  liquor  traffic, 
as  indeed,  sad  to  say,  some  men  do  seem  to 
think.  We  cannot  suppose  that  Jesus  would 
wish  us  to  make  any  distinction  between  pre- 
venting blindness  and  restoring  sight.  May  it 
not  be  that  this  greater  task  is  the  fulfillment  of 
the  Master's  prophecy  to  His  disciples  that  they 
should  do  greater  works  than  His,  because  He 
was  with  the  Father  ? 

The  reason  that  the  Federal  Council's  social 
platform  seemed  so  new,  when  it  really  was  so 


22    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ancient,  was  that  it  marked  this  departure  from 
measures  of  social  amelioration  to  means  and 
methods  of  prevention.  We  have  awakened  to 
the  fact  that  we  have  failed  because  we  exercised 
our  healing  ministrations  with  the  results  while 
the  causes  went  on  unchecked.  We  have  de- 
veloped a  system  of  industry  and  a  type  of 
civilization  which,  together  with  our  prevalent 
individualistic  conception  of  Christianity,  have 
brought  to  us  great  forces  both  of  good  and  of 
ill.  In  one  city  I  once  discovered  over  thirty 
cases  of  most  terrible  disease,  all  of  them  traced 
back  directly  to  one  industrial  occupation  upon 
which  that  city  had  amassed  its  wealth.  The 
physicians  of  the  city  had  been  so  busy  dealing 
with  effects  that  they  had  failed  to  note  the 
causes.  The  Churches  had  visited  the  hospitals 
when  they  should  have  visited  their  righteous 
wrath  upon  the  factories  and  mills.  Under  our 
present  industrial  system  and  our  modern  methods 
of  population,  no  mere  ministry  of  healing  can 
prevail.  It  has  got  to  be  a  militant  warfare 
which  reaches  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  our 
common  social  life.  Our  great  captains  of  in- 
dustry can  no  longer  go  on  making  their  contri- 
butions to  our  hospitals  and  our  asylums,  while 
our  industry,  by  preventable  causes,  maims  and 
mangles  and  stifles  our  human  brothers.  Those 
who  control  our  lands  and  estates  can  no  longer 
satisfy  themselves  with  even  the  most  lavish  gifts 


The  Great  Physician  23 

for  cure,  while  their  tenements  kill  off  our  babies 
beyond  the  count  of  Herod. 

But  is  this  the  task  of  the  Church  ?  Is  it  her 
business  ?  Let  us  go  back  again  to  the  ministry 
of  Jesus.  John  the  Baptist  doubted  Him.  He 
sent  his  disciples  to  ask  of  Him,  "  Art  Thou  He 
that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another?" 
The  answer  of  Jesus  was  brief  and  without  a  mo- 
ment of  hesitation  :  "  Go  and  show  John  again 
those  things  which  ye  do  hear  and  see :  The 
blind  receive  their  sight,  and  the  lame  walk,  the 
lepers  are  cleansed,  and  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead 
are  raised  up,  and  the  poor  have  the  Gospel 
preached  to  them.  And  blessed  is  he,  whoso- 
ever shall  not  be  offended  in  Me." 

Jesus  made  His  healing  ministry  of 'men 's  bodies 
a  sovereign  test  of  His  own  Messiahship  and  His 
spiritual  Lordship. 

But  again :  upon  only  one  occasion  did  the 
Sovereign  of  mankind  declare  the  moral  de- 
terminance  of  human  destiny.  He  pictured  the 
final  judgment  only  once  in  all  His  preaching, 
but  here  again  He  never  spoke  more  clearly ; 
He  never  spoke  with  less  qualification,  and  these 
were  His  words  of  judgment : 

"  When  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in 
his  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels  with 
him,  then  shall  he  sit  upon  the  throne  of 
his  glory  :  And  before  him  shall  be  gath- 
ered all  nations ;   and   he  shall  separate 


24    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

them  one  from  another,  as  a  shepherd  di- 
videth  his  sheep  from  the  goats :  And  he 
shall  set  the  sheep  on  his  right  hand,  but 
the  goats  on  the  left.  Then  shall  the  King 
say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand,  Come, 
ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  King- 
dom prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world  ;  For  I  was  ahungered,  and 
ye  gave  me  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  drink :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye 
took  me  in :  Naked,  and  ye  clothed  me : 
/  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me :  I  was  in 
prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me.  Then  shall 
the  righteous  answer  him,  saying,  Lord, 
when  saw  we  thee  ahungered,  and  fed 
thee?  or  thirsty,  and  gave  thee  drink? 
When  saw  we  thee  a  stranger,  and  took 
thee  in  ?  or  naked,  and  clothed  thee  ?  Or 
when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and 
came  unto  thee  ?  And  the  King  shall  an- 
swer and  say  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
have  done  it  to  me.  Then  shall  he  say 
also  unto  them  on  the  left  hand,  Depart 
from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire, 
prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels :  for 
I  was  ahungered,  and  ye  gave  me  no 
meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  no 
drink :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
not  in  :  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  not : 
sick  and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not. 
Then  shall  they  also  answer  him,  saying, 
Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  ahungered  or 
athirst,  or  a  stranger,  or  naked,  or  sick, 


The  Great  Physician  25 

or  in  prison,  and  did  not  minister  unto 
thee?  Then  shall  he  answer  them,  say- 
ing, Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as 
ye  did  it  not  to  one  of  the  least  of  these, 
ye  did  it  not  to  me.  And  these  shall  go 
away  into  everlasting  punishment :  but 
the  righteous  into  life  eternal." 

Some  men  are  just  simple  enough  to  accept 
these  utterances  just  as  Jesus  spoke  them  and 
just  naive  enough  to  believe  that  He  meant  what 
He  said  and  not  something  else. 

Jesus  made  the  healing  of  men 's  bodies  a  de- 
termining  test  of  the  eternal  judgment  of  man- 
kind. 

But  still  further,  perhaps  the  most  sacred  scene 
in  Christian  history  is  that  of  the  transfiguration 
of  the  Master.  He  had  been  upon  the  mountain. 
His  face  did  shine  as  the  sun.  His  raiment  was 
white  as  the  light.  A  bright  cloud  overshad- 
owed Him.  The  divine  voice  proclaimed  His 
Lordship.  It  was  the  revelation  of  His  spiritual 
sovereignty.  It  was  His  highest  moment  of 
spiritual  exaltation.  Here,  if  ever,  He  was  away 
from  earth. 

But  the  next  scene  follows  in  the  very  next 
moment.  It  is  the  picture  of  the  transfigured 
Master  at  the  foot  of  that  same  mountain  with  a 
lunatic  kneeling  at  His  feet  to  receive  His  touch 
and  His  word  of  physical  healing. 

The  disciples  were  undoubtedly  surprised.     In- 


26    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

deed,  Peter  had  urged  that  they  build  abiding 
tabernacles  upon  the  mountain  top.  But  Jesus 
said,  "  No !  Peter,  we  go  down  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  now  to  the  needy  world  again." 

Jesus  made  the  healing  of  meri  s  bodies  the  nat- 
ural expression  of  His  own  personality  at  the 
moment  of  His  highest  spiritual  exaltation. 

Is  the  war  on  disease  then  a  worthy  objective 
for  the  Christian  Church  ?  The  answer  of  Jesus 
is  that  it  was  the  test  of  His  own  Lordship ;  that 
it  was  the  measure  and  the  expression  of  His 
own  spiritual  life  ;  and  that  it  is  a  final  determin- 
ing factor  in  the  moral  judgment  of  mankind. 

There  is  then  a  spiritual  significance  in  this 
modern  crusade  for  health.  It  is  an  expression 
of  reverence  for  human  personality.  It  is  the 
answer  of  the  Master's  question,  "  How  much  is 
a  man  better  than  a  sheep?"  I  have  sometimes 
been  in  the  hospital  when  the  physician  has 
brought  in  together  the  great  strong  man  with 
life  pulsating  through  all  his  being  and  the  frail, 
weak  brother  with  pallid  face  and  trembling  step, 
who  has  brought  them  together  and  has  taken 
the  blood  and  the  life  of  the  one  and  has  put  it 
into  the  other.  It  is  a  parable  of  the  Christian 
spirit,  so  far  as  the  Christian  spirit  is  the  spirit  of 
Christ. 

There  are  those  who  tell  us  that  we  must  al- 
ways have  war.  They  mean  the  kind  of  war 
that  they  are  fighting  across  the  sea.     And  they 


The  Great  Physician  27 

are  partly  right.  We  must  have  war.  The 
fighting  spirit  in  men  remains.  Christianity 
must  always  be  militant.  And  we  shall  always 
have  men  lighting  each  other  unless  we  can  give 
to  mankind  new  moral  and  spiritual  objectives 
for  the  militant  spirit.  This  is  the  kind  of  war- 
fare that  gives  the  highest  expression  to  our 
Christian  faith  ;  the  willingness  to  suffer  for  oth- 
ers. The  culture  of  the  Cross  is  not  yet  gained, 
the  lesson  of  the  school  of  Calvary  is  not  yet 
learned,  the  law  of  Jesus  is  not  fulfilled,  when  we 
see  but  one  meaning  of  His  sacrifice  and  learn 
by  it  to  bear  our  own  sorrows  patiently.  Not 
by  the  bearing  of  our  own,  but  of  one  another's 
burdens  do  we  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ. 

Let  us  take  one  example.  The  most  beautiful 
thing  in  all  the  world  is  motherhood.  And  yet 
nothing  in  our  modern  civilization  has  been  more 
degraded  by  physical  neglect  than  motherhood. 
Modern  industry  and  our  inhuman  methods  of 
the  distribution  of  population  are  the  violators  of 
its  sanctity.  I  cannot  understand  how  any  hu- 
man being  can  oppose  some  of  our  present  laws 
with  relation  to  women  in  industry.  What  does 
God  think  of  motherhood  ? 

In  the  fullness  of  His  goodness  and  His  glory 
God  was  to  come  among  men.  It  was  by  a  very 
simple  way.  He  found,  first,  a  good  and  pure 
and  holy  woman.  One  by  one  He  was  to  take 
every  relation  of  human  life  and  invest  it  with 


28    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

a  divine  meaning,  and  He  began  with  mother- 
hood. 

"  And  the  angel  came  in  unto  her,  and 
said,  Hail,  thou  that  art  highly  favored, 
the  Lord  is  with  thee." 

Page  upon  page  of  learned  disquisition  have 
been  written  to  interpret  this,  and  most  of  them 
have  never  touched  its  deeper  meaning.  It  is 
a  strangely  materialistic  mind  that  lowers  the 
sublime  and  beautiful  idea  of  this  transcendently 
told  story  by  making  it  the  subject  of  a  cold  and 
hard  analysis.  Is  the  story  true?  To  ask  the 
question  is  to  show  that  we  have  missed  its  deep- 
est meaning. 

"And  the  angel  answered  and  said 
unto  her,  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  come  upon 
thee,  and  the  power  of  the  Highest  shall 
overshadow  thee :  Therefore  also  that 
holy  being  which  shall  be  born  of  thee 
shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God." 

The  first  mark  of  the  incarnation  was  the 
illuminating  of  motherhood  with  its  divineness. 
And  over  every  mother,  if  she  will  but  look  and 
listen,  is  the  angel.  Upon  her  is  the  shadow  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and 

14  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy!  " 

"  The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  Star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  cometh  from  afar  : 


The  Great  Physician  29 

"  Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

No  diviner  task  awaits  the  Church  than  her 
crusade  for  motherhood,  a  sweet,  wholesome 
motherhood. 

Take  another  great  question  which  absorbs  so 
much  of  our  serious  thought — the  question  known 
as  sex  hygiene.  Shall  the  Christian  Church  make 
war  in  this  realm  ?  Who  can  if  she  does  not  ? 
Men  are  trying  other  methods.  They  are  pro- 
ceeding upon  the  assumption  that  the  motive  of 
fear  can  work  the  moral  transformation.  But  sta- 
tistics certainly  do  not  warrant  their  conclusions. 
Others  tell  us  that  if  we  give  men  enough  knowl- 
edge they  will  behave  themselves.  And  yet,  so 
far  as  we  can  learn,  neither  students  of  medicine 
nor  their  companions,  the  nurses,  who  have  more 
knowledge  than  anybody  else,  are  any  more 
chaste  on  the  whole  than  other  classes  of  people. 
You  cannot  make  warfare  in  this  realm  with  any 
but  spiritual  weapons — by  what  Dr.  Cabot  has 
so  beautifully  called  "  The  consecration  of  the 
human  affections." 

I  went  the  other  evening  to  a  sacred  service. 
It  was  the  ordination  of  missionaries  to  the  for- 
eign field.  But  there  were  all  kinds  of  mission- 
aries. There  were  the  preachers  ;  there  were  the 
physicians ;  there  were  the  nurses  and  the  dea- 


30    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

conesses,  the  industrial  teachers — and  the  beau- 
tiful thing  about  it  was  that  they  all  knelt  to- 
gether and  bowed  their  heads  and  the  hands  of 
sacred  ordination  were  placed  upon  all  of  them, 
and  they  all  went  out — the  preacher  and  the 
doctor  and  the  nurse  and  the  teacher — with  the 
same  holy  ordination  for  the  same  sacred  task. 

Here  we  are  in  this  world  with  our  varied 
tasks.  Some  of  us  are  preachers;  some  of  us 
are  doctors  ;  some  of  us  are  teachers ;  but  in  this 
great  service  to  which  we  are  constrained  we 
were  all  of  us  divinely  committed  by  our  Master 
two  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  task  of  one  of 
us  is  no  more  sacred  than  the  task  of  the  other. 

The  disciples,  then,  must  go  to  the  Mountain 
of  Transfiguration  with  Jesus.  The  next  hour  of 
the  day  they  must  go  down  with  Him  upon  the 
plain  of  human  life  to  heal  men  of  their  diseases. 
But  mark  this,  they  cannot  do  His  work  upon 
the  plain  unless  they  have  been  upon  the  moun- 
tain top  with  the  Master,  so  that  they  may  come 
down  radiant  with  the  light  that  shines  from  His 
face. 

"  The  world  sits  at  the  feet  of  Christ, 
Unknowing,  blind  and  unconsoled, 
It  yet  shall  touch  His  garment's  fold 
And  feel  the  heavenly  alchemist 
Transform  its  very  dust  to  gold." 

Is  war  on  disease  a  worthy  objective  for  a  re- 
ligious crusade  ?     The  answer  is  the  answer  of 


The  Great  Physician  31 

the  Master,  who  made  His  own  ministry  for  hu- 
man health  the  sovereign  proof  of  His  Messiah- 
ship,  the  expression  of  His  own  spiritual  life  and 
the  arbiter  of  the  eternal  judgment  of  men.  "  In- 
asmuch af:  ye  did  it,  or  as  ye  did  it  not,  ye  did 
it,  or  ye  did  it  not,  to  Me." 

We  have  thousands  upon  thousands  of  men 
maimed  and  mangled  in  our  industrial  life,  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  our  women,  our  chil- 
dren and  our  babies,  who  in  the  name  of  Christ 
Himself  stretch  out  their  hands  to  His  holy 
Church. 

Is  war  for  health  a  worthy  crusade  in  the  name 
of  religion  ? 

Let  another  of  the  most  sacred  scenes  in  our 
Master's  life  give  answer.  It  is  the  story  told  by 
the  physician  disciple,  Luke,  and  this  is  the  way 
it  reads :  "  He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray 
and  continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God.  And 
when  it  was  day  He  came  down  and  stood  in  the 
plain  ;  there  went  virtue  out  of  Him  and  healed 
them  of  all  their  diseases." 

11  Where  cross  the  crowded  ways  of  life, 
Where  sound  the  cries  of  race  and  clan, 
Above  the  noise  of  selfish  strife, 
We  hear  Thy  voice,  O  Son  of  Man  ! 

"  In  haunts  of  wretchedness  and  need, 
On  shadowed  thresholds  dark  with  fears, 
From  paths  where  hide  the  lures  of  greed, 
Wc  catch  the  vision  of  Thy  tears. 


32    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

"  From  tender  childhood's  helplessness, 
From  woman's  grief,  man's  burdened  toil, 
From  famished  souls,  from  sorrow's  stress, 
Thy  heart  has  never  known  recoil. 

"  O  Master,  from  the  mountainside 

Make  haste  to  heal  these  hearts  of  pain  ; 
Among  these  restless  throngs  abide, 
O  tread  the  city's  streets  again." 

Among  the  "spiritual  gifts"  of  the  modern 
Church,  different  in  its  application  because  of  the 
eternally  enduring  universality  of  Christian  truth 
and  its  adaptation  to  every  age,  but  handed 
down  to  her,  through  the  Apostolic  Church,  from 
the  pierced  hands  of  her  Master,  is  her  "  gift  of 
healing." 


II 

THE  CHURCH  AND  MODERN  INDUSTRY 

AN  attempt  to  analyze  the  world  order  of 
to-day  resolves  that  order  into  three  con- 
stituent institutions  or  movements — the 
State,  the  body  politic,  the  all-inclusive  institu- 
tion of  the  social  life  of  mankind  ;  DEMOCRACY, 
the  constant,  irresistible  rise  of  the  people  out  of 
obscurity  and  oppression  into  equality  and  au- 
thority ;  and  CHRISTIANITY,  not  ecclesiastically, 
but  spiritually  constituted  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  State,  inclusive  of  all  human  interests 
in  one  universal  form  ;  Democracy,  the  order 
towards  which  the  State  is  moving  steadily ; 
Christianity,  the  power,  the  leaven,  the  dynamic 
of  democracy.  And  the  relation  between  these 
three  phenomena  is  vital,  substantial  and  essen- 
tial. The  order  of  our  human  progress  must 
come  by  the  three  related  processes — the  State 
will  become  the  ultimate  form  of  human  life  ; 
Democracy  the  ultimate  form  of  the  State ; 
Christianity  the  vital  power  of  Democracy. 
Thus  I  would  state  what  we  call  the  social  prob- 
lem in  its  relation  to  the  Gospel  and  the  Church. 
Democracy  is  the  comprehensive  factor  ;  its  life 
and   being   consist   largely  in  the  social  move- 

33 


34    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ments  of  our  day,  and  the  social  mission  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  that  of  relating  her  life  and 
inspiration  to  these  movements.  We  discover  two 
elements  in  all  our  social  movements.  First,  the 
background  of  ultimate  purpose,  intent  and 
ideal  ;  second,  the  foreground  of  immediate 
means  and  methods,  and  the  first  duty  of  the 
religious  leader  is  to  understand  their  spirit  in 
order  that  he  may  guide  them  towards  their  true 
ideals.  A  complex  of  wrong  means  and  methods 
is  very  often  in  the  foreground,  and  these 
obscure  the  splendid  impulses  of  justice  and 
righteousness  in  the  background.  The  King- 
dom of  God  is  made  up  largely  of  these  modern 
social  movements,  but  it  is  not  yet  an  ordered 
kingdom.  An  international  peace  convention 
was  held  a  little  while  ago.  All  kinds  of  men 
were  there,  economists,  commercialists  and 
churchmen.  The  note  of  highest  moral  and 
spiritual  idealism  in  that  convention  was  struck 
by  neither  economist  nor  churchman.  It  was  by 
a  socialist  leader. 

The  Church  has  here  the  sovereign  vocation  of 
conscience,  interpreter  and  guide  of  social  move- 
ments. She  is  to  determine  what  their  motive 
must  be,  and  to  develop  a  conscience  in  them,  to 
interpret  with  ethical  lucidity  their  inner  and  ulti- 
mate meaning,  and  with  powerful  hand  and 
mind  and  heart  to  guide  them  towards  their 
spiritual  ends. 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        35 

A  chief  element  in  our  democratic  order  and 
its  sovereign  movements  is  industrialism,  a 
problem  that  cannot  be  treated  by  Christians  as 
calm,  dispassionate,  economic  students.  He  who 
could  thus  consider  it,  throbbing  with  questions 
of  righteousness  and  justice,  would  be  capable  of 
pursuing  the  study  of  botany  by  pulling  to  pieces 
the  roses  upon  the  grave  of  his  mother.  For 
here,  if  anywhere,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  very 
depths  of  religion,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the  emo- 
tion of  the  human  heart. 

The  Church  to-day  is  growingly  inspired  by 
three  impulses — first,  the  impulse  of  Democracy 
itself ;  second,  the  deepening  of  human  sympathy  ; 
and,  third,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  The 
progress  of  the  Church  is  grievously  retarded  by 
the  havoc  of  the  present  social  and  industrial 
order,  and  she  must  herself  become  the  leader  in 
creating  the  new  environment  which  is  a  para- 
mount necessity  for  the  perpetuation  of  her  life. 
And  yet  had  she  not  just  that  task  she  could  not 
live. 

On  every  hand  men  are  yielding  to  the  sweet 
temptation  to  place  the  Church  upon  the  rack, 
and  sometimes,  with  playful  sarcasm  and  hilari- 
ous impertinence,  to  apply  to  her  "  the  third 
degree."  She  has  failed  !  It  is  asserted  that  her 
new  and  hitherto  neglected  task  is  Social  Service. 
Yet  it  is  not  new.  Israel's  history  began  with  an 
industrial  uprising.    The  Church  has  always  been, 


36    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

either  directly  or  indirectly,  the  leader,  the  in- 
spirer,  the  supporter  of  philanthropy,  charity  and 
social  regeneration,  and  she  stands  without  the 
suggestion  or  intimation  of  a  peer.  Every  such 
movement  in  the  world  is  a  child  of  the  Church 
and  an  expression  of  her  Gospel. 

And,  what  is  more,  that  Church  and  that 
Gospel  have  been  the  arch-creators  of  our  social 
unrest,  as  the  Gospel  has  given  to  mankind  this 
vision  of  his  higher,  larger,  freer,  nobler  life. 
We  might  as  well  recognize  our  responsibility. 
The  Gospel  of  Jesus  has  never  proved  a  sedative. 
It  has  always  been  productive  of  that  discontent 
which  is  the  first  approach  to  aspiration.  Shall 
the  Church,  then,  stand  in  dread  before  the 
mighty  task  for  which  she  herself  is  so  responsible  ? 
Shall  she  go  on  opening  up  before  the  eyes  of 
men  a  vision  of  economic,  moral  and  spiritual 
freedom,  while  she  does  not  break  the  iron  bands 
of  injustice  and  dishonesty  which  fetter  their 
economic  moral  and  spiritual  progress  ? 

Why  then  are  we  disquieted  within  ?  The 
Church  has  failed  to  adjust  herself  to  a  new  in- 
dustrial environment,  which  came  upon  her  un- 
awares, which  she  herself  created.  In  fact  all  in- 
stitutions have  failed  thus  far  to  meet  it.  The 
State  has  failed ;  society  has  failed  ;  political 
economists  have  failed  to  a  most  pitiful  degree. 
All  are  discovering  that  in  our  attempts  to  ex- 
press our  human  sympathy  we  have  been  dealing 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        37 

only  with  effects  and  neglecting  resident  forces. 
We  are  now  getting  back  to  the  causes  of  things, 
and  without,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  neglecting  regen- 
eration and  redemption,  we  are  seeking  to  apply 
prevention.  And  just  as  the  Church  has  ever 
been  the  great  physician  in  repairing  social 
damage,  so  now  she  is  to  become  the  restorer  of 
the  social  order,  if  it  is  to  be  restored. 

The  Church's  self-respect  and  her  deepened 
social  conscience  no  longer  permit  her  to  be  rep- 
resented in  the  slightest  degree  by  the  individual 
at  the  banquet,  who,  listening  to  the  impassioned 
utterance  of  the  orator  of  the  occasion  depicting 
the  sufferings,  the  hardships,  the  unselfishness, 
the  sacrifice  of  the  working  man,  arose  at  its 
close,  spoke  of  the  stirring  of  his  deep  emotion, 
said  that  something  must  be  done,  and  proposed 
to  the  assemblage  "  Three  cheers  for  the  work- 
ing man  ! "  to  be  followed  by  a  liberal  collection. 
The  Church  is  bound  to  go  deep  into  the  issues 
of  the  debate. 

When  the  Christian  Church  attempts  thus  to 
get  back  of  social  wrong  to  its  vital  and  intimate 
relation  with  social  wrongs,  she  finds  herself  at 
every  point  face  to  face  with  modern  industry. 
Is  it  the  saloon  ?  The  problem  is  inextricably 
intertwined  with  industry.  Is  it  social  vice  ? 
Her  commissions  trace  it,  more  or  less  directly, 
back  to  the  conditions  and  environment  of  toil. 
Is  it  the  welfare  of  the  child  ?     She  is  facing  the 


38    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

wan  and  pallid  countenance  of  child  labor.  Is  it 
the  conservation  of  a  sweet  wifehood  and  a  happy 
motherhood  within  the  home  ?  Is  it  that  of  guid- 
ing and  uplifting  those  who  come  to  our  doors 
from  the  nations  of  the  world  and  the  islands  of 
the  sea  ?  She  finds  herself  involved  at  every  point 
in  the  industrial  order. 

Nay,  it  comes  closer  home.  One  of  her  sacred 
tasks  has  been  the  preservation  of  the  Christian 
Sabbath.  Here  she  is  face  to  face  with  the 
ever-increasing  "  continuous  "  industries.  The 
churches  and  the  pastors  in  the  industrial  com- 
munity investigated  by  the  Commission  on  the 
Church  and  Social  Service,  with  from  twenty- 
eight  to  forty-three  per  cent,  of  the  men  work- 
ing not  only  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  sometimes 
twenty-four  continuous  hours,  but  also  seven  days 
in  every  week,  have  some  other  questions  to  ask 
than  the  more  common  one,  "Why  don't  the 
working  men  go  to  church?"  It  becomes  not 
only  the  question  of  getting  the  working  man 
into  the  Church,  but  the  somewhat  larger  one  of 
getting  the  Christian  Gospel  into  industry. 

At  the  present  moment  it  must  be  admitted 
her  sense  is  largely  that  of  a  confused  helpless- 
ness. I  have  met  recently  with  the  ministers  of 
three  cities  which,  if  certain  portents  of  industrial 
disaster  are  not  groundless,  may  all  be  within 
sixty  days  wiped  practically  out  of  industrial 
existence,  and  they  all  admitted  their  inability 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        39 

and  that  of  the  Church  to  stay  for  one  brief  in- 
stant the  inundation. 

Witness  the  sad  spectacle  in  recent  days — at 
Lawrence,  at  Paterson,  at  Little  Falls,  at  Mus- 
catine, in  Michigan  and  Colorado.  In  every  in- 
stance preachers  and  churches  were  not  only 
without  adequate  influence,  but  also  without 
contact  with  the  immediate  situation,  because 
they  were  so  absolutely  without  contact  with 
the  great  democratic  life  which  for  years  had 
been  growing  up  about  them. 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  we  face  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  or  not  the  Church  shall  op- 
pose those  who  still  proclaim  the  sense  of  her 
irrelevancy  to  these  human  problems,  and 
whether  or  not  she  shall,  at  their  behest,  adapt 
the  ethical  principles  of  the  Gospel  to  the  sup- 
posititious exigencies  of  commerce  or  to  the 
meagre,  shamefaced  codes  of  an  overstrained 
industrial  system. 

That  she  does  not  mean  to  do  so  was  indicated 
when,  at  the  organization  of  the  Federal  Council 
of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America,  and  again 
at  the  second  quadrennial  council,  after  the  affir- 
mation of  the  divine  sovereignty  of  Jesus  Christ, 
she  proposed  the  Church's  Industrial  platform 
in  terms  like  this  : 

"  To  us  it  seems  that  the  Churches  must  stand  : 

"  1.  For  equal  rights  and  complete  justice  for 
all  men  in  all  stations  of  life. 


40    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

"  2.  For  the  protection  of  the  family,  by  the 
single  standard  of  purity,  uniform  divorce  laws, 
proper  regulation  of  marriage,  and  proper 
housing. 

"  3.  For  the  fullest  possible  development  for 
every  child,  especially  by  the  provision  of  proper 
education  and  recreation. 

"  4.     For  the  abolition  of  child  labor. 

"  5.  For  such  regulation  of  the  conditions  of 
toil  for  women  as  shall  safeguard  the  physical 
and  moral  health  of  the  community. 

"  6.  For  the  abatement  and  prevention  of 
poverty. 

"  7.  For  the  protection  of  the  individual  and 
society  from  the  social,  economic,  and  moral 
waste  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

"  8.     For  the  conservation  of  health. 

"  9.  For  the  protection  of  the  worker  from 
dangerous  machinery,  occupational  diseases,  and 
mortality. 

"  10.  For  the  right  of  all  men  to  the  oppor- 
tunity for  self-maintenance,  for  safeguarding  this 
right  against  encroachments  of  every  kind,  and 
for  the  protection  of  workers  from  the  hardships 
of  enforced  unemployment. 

"11.  For  suitable  provision  for  the  old  age 
of  the  workers,  and  for  those  incapacitated  by 
injury. 

"  12.  For  the  right  of  employees  and  em- 
ployers  alike    to   organize ;    and   for   adequate 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        41 

means    of    conciliation    and    arbitration   in    in- 
dustrial disputes. 

"  13.  For  a  release  from  employment  one  day 
in  seven. 

"  14.  For  the  gradual  and  reasonable  reduc- 
tion of  the  hours  of  labor  to  the  lowest  practi- 
cable point,  and  for  that  degree  of  leisure  for  all 
which  is  a  condition  of  the  highest  human  life. 

"  15.  For  a  living  wage  as  a  minimum  in 
every  industry,  and  for  the  highest  wage  that 
each  industry  can  afford. 

"  16.  For  a  new  emphasis  upon  the  applica- 
tion of  Christian  principles  to  the  acquisition  and 
use  of  property,  and  for  the  most  equitable  divi- 
sion of  the  product  of  industry  that  can  ulti- 
mately be  devised." 

And  then  was  added  : 

"  To  the  toilers  of  America,  and  to  those  who, 
by  organized  effort,  are  seeking  to  reduce  the 
hardships  and  uphold  the  dignity  of  labor,  this 
Council  sends  the  greeting  of  human  brother- 
hood and  the  pledge  of  sympathy  and  of  help 
in  a  cause  which  belongs  to  all  who  follow 
Christ." 

And  when  the  Church  made  this  newer  Creed 
she  just  stood  by  her  Master  in  the  Synagogue 
of  Nazareth,  took  the  sacred  roll  from  His  hand 
and  read,  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 
because  He  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  poor  ;    to  preach   deliverance  to 


42    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

the  captive ;  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are 
bruised  ;  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord."  Then,  turning  to  the  people,  she  pro- 
claimed, "  This  day  is  this  Scripture  fulfilled  in 
your  ears." 

But  now  is  this  all  ?  Is  the  question  the 
simple  one  of  bringing  the  persuasions  of  the 
Gospel  to  bear  upon  what  we  call  Capital  and 
Labor?  Part  of  it  is  this,  but  we  find  serious 
limitations.  While  the  conflict  is  too  largely 
brought  about  by  the  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth  through  superior  ability  or  opportunity 
misused  for  selfish  purpose,  this  is  by  no  means 
all.  It  is  not  simply  a  moral  question.  The 
elements  of  combination,  competition,  prices,  the 
tariff  and  a  multitude  of  economic  matters  enter 
in.  Are  these  her  questions  ?  Manifestly,  no. 
As  many  preachers  have  been  spoiled  by  polit- 
ical economy  as  have  been  helped  by  it.  Moral 
vision  and  the  prophetic  sense  are,  and  always 
will  be,  the  assets  of  the  prophet. 

Therefore  the  Church  is  obliged  to  appeal  for 
the  assistance  of  the  State.  Seven-day  labor  is 
not  the  simple  moral  question  of  inducing  an 
employer  to  give  his  working  people  one  day  in 
seven.  They  are  all  bound  up  together.  One 
cannot  do  this  unless  others  in  the  same  industry 
comply.  Indeed,  it  cannot  be  done  in  one  in- 
dustry or  nation  unless  other  industries  and 
peoples  cooperate  in   the   same  rule.     In  other 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        43 

words,  we  have  to  deal  not  only  with  ideals, 
but  with  an  economic  system.  Let  us  realize 
that  two  elements  are  here — personality  and 
environment.  Men  are  wrong,  heartless, 
specious,  but  even  when  not  so  the  thing  it- 
self is  bad ;  and  if,  in  making  it  right,  the 
persons  suffer,  we  must  try  still  to  make  it  right. 
Let  us  be  frank.  We  are  trying  to  reverse  the 
law  so  that,  so  far  as  justice  may  adjust,  to  him 
that  hath  not  shall  be  given,  and  from  him  that 
hath  shall  be  taken  away  that  which  belongs  to 
him  that  hath  not.  And  I  thank  God  I  find 
men  of  business  ready  for  the  task,  waiting  for 
both  Church  and  State  to  teil  them  what  to  do. 

Thus  the  important  question  that  faces  us  is 
the  question  as  to  how  far  it  is  our  divine  obliga- 
tion to  transform  human  philanthropy  into  in- 
dustrial justice.  Are  we  to  leave  the  working 
out  of  the  larger  problems  of  our  democracy  to 
such  organizations  as  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
the  World  while  we  simply  criticize  and  con- 
demn their  mistaken  means  and  methods  ?  Are 
we  to  be  mere  repairers  while  they  seek  to  re- 
generate ? 

We  must  continually  remind  ourselves  that  we 
have  been  the  creators  of  this  industrial  unrest. 
We  have  by  our  gospel  of  freedom  brought  wit- 
ness of  the  larger  human  life,  and  we  have  been 
nurturing  it.  The  Church  and  the  Gospel  have 
created  a  social  democracy  in  which  they  live 


44    Christian  Service  and  the  Modem  World 

and  move,  and  have  their  being,  in  which  they 
have  room  to  grow,  in  which  their  cries  can  be 
heard  even  though  they  be  "  like  infants  crying 
in  the  night,  like  infants  crying  for  the  light  and 
with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  There  has 
been  a  good  deal  of  argument  in  the  public  press 
about  the  relation  between  social  vice  and  the 
industrial  wage.  Much  of  what  is  said  is  very 
trivial.  It  is  absurd  to  assert  that  the  vice  is 
proportional  to  the  wage.  That  there  is  a  rela- 
tionship between  the  two  no  one  can  deny.  (As 
a  matter  of  obvious  fact,  the  prostitution  of 
womanhood  is  caused  by  the  lust  of  men.  Be- 
side this  cause,  all  others  are  insignificant. 
Everybody  knows  it,  but  for  some  reason  or 
other  nobody  likes  to  say  it.)  All  this,  however, 
is  aside  from  the  essential  question  :  The  ques- 
tion of  an  equitable  division  of  the  product  of  in- 
dustry. The  obligation  to  seek  justice  for  the 
workers  in  industry  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
question  as  to  whether  or  not  impoverished  con- 
ditions lead  to  vice.  It  is  not  a  question  of  ex- 
pediency ;  it  is  a  question  of  justice,  truth,  right- 
eousness. 

The  long  procession  of  women  and  little  chil- 
dren at  Lawrence  with  faces  filled  with  bitterness 
and  hate;  the  lurid  pictures  of  the  Pittsburgh 
survey ;  the  sad  story  of  Muscatine  as  told  by 
the   social   service    commission   of   the    Federal 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        45 

Council ;  the  recent  scenes  in  religious  Boston, 
when  the  great  army  of  telephone  girls  with 
nerves  racked  not  only  by  the  sudden  sense  of 
rebellion  which  arose  among  them,  but  racked 
by  their  severe  and  too  incessant  toil,  largely 
brought  on  by  our  exactions,  witnessed  their  sis- 
ters imported  from  another  city  and  set  over 
against  them  by  the  bribes  of  luxurious  living  at 
the  Back  Bay  hostelries,  the  5,000  men  and 
women  whom  I  saw  gathered  in  the  auditorium 
of  Denver  to  express  their  protest  against  what 
they  believed  to  be  a  deep  injustice  of  the  courts 
of  justice  themselves ;  are  the  problems  of  all 
these  men  and  women  the  problems  of  their 
Christian  brothers  and  sisters  ? 

It  is  not  the  primary  function  of  the  Church  to 
fix  the  blame  or  to  make  a  specialty  of  personal- 
izing the  attack  (she  is  not  the  judge  or  the 
divider  in  this  sense),  but  mainly  to  acknowledge 
her  own  large  share  (and  this  she  has  done,  mark 
you,  more  than  any  other  institution  or  element 
concerned)  and  then  proceed  bravely  with  her 
constructive  task. 

And  if  the  old  garment  can  no  more  be  patched, 
or  the  bottles  no  longer  hold  the  new  wine  of  jus- 
tice, she  must  obey  her  Lord  and  let  them  go. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Church  is  com- 
mitted to  the  present  social  order  only  so  far  as 
the  present  social  order  is  committed  to  the 
teachings  of  Jesus. 


46    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

Here  we  come  upon  the  vexed  question  of  the 
relation  between  Church  and  State,  and  yet  is  it 
not  clear  ?  The  Church  is  to  do  her  work  in  the 
order  of  modern  industry  by  bringing  to  bear 
upon  it  the  idealism  of  her  Gospel  and  by  infus- 
ing it  with  the  impulse  of  her  sympathy.  The 
business  of  the  State  is  to  bring  about  such 
economic  conditions  and  environment  that  the 
idealism  of  the  Gospel  may  have  as  clear  and 
fair  a  field  as  possible.  It  is  this  that  justifies 
the  Church,  not  in  entangling  herself  in  economic 
or  legislative  machinery,  but  in  turning  to  the 
State  for  a  moral  cooperation  which  will  enable 
her  to  do  her  sacred  task. 

Thus  the  whole  problem  stands  before  the 
moral  and  social  conscience  of  the  nation  as  we 
face  the  wrongs  of  industry.  Force  and  violence 
— these  cannot  be  condoned.  But  most  men  are 
not  violent  by  nature,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  both 
Church  and  State,  not  simply  to  restrain  or  to 
condemn,  but  to  seek  the  terrible  aggravations 
behind  such  force  and  violence. 

The  profound  restlessness  of  the  workers  is 
largely  caused  by  their  feeling  that  there  are  no 
organic  ways,  through  either  Church  or  State, 
by  which  they  may  act  collectively  with  regard 
to  the  things  that  deeply  concern  and,  indeed, 
determine  their  whole  physical,  moral  and  spir- 
itual welfare.  Is  it  so?  Let  us  ask  ourselves 
what  channels  are  open  for  them  by  which  they 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        47 

may  better  their  conditions  or  express  their 
needs,  other  than  their  own  channels. 

Can  we  for  a  moment  contend  that  the  indus- 
trial workers  have  yet  found  in  the  Church  an 
opportunity  for  self-expression?  The  question 
shrinkingly  answers  itself. 

That  the  press  of  the  nation  is  more  than 
closed  to  them  is  clear  to  any  man  who  reads  it 
side  by  side  with  the  journals  of  labor  and  of 
social  reform.  What  man  of  us  believes  that  the 
press  of  our  day  enjoys  a  real  moral  freedom  ? 

They  have  the  opportunity  of  political  action, 
ideally  to  an  unlimited  degree,  practically  to  a 
very  fragmentary  one. 

Through  economic  action  they  have  the  mu- 
tual bargaining  between  employer  and  em- 
ployed, which  is,  again,  ideally  their  privilege  ; 
but  can  they  really  feel  that  their  "  masters  "  are 
as  a  whole  primarily  concerned  with  human  con- 
servation ? 

Finally,  are  the  courts  of  justice  their  last  and 
adequate  resort?  Let  the  judges  upon  the 
bench  in  the  recent  centres  of  industrial  disorder 
give  answer.  Read  the  story  of  industrial  injunc- 
tions. 

In  short,  there  has  been,  up  to  this  time,  no 
satisfactory  medium  for  such  expression ;  the 
workers  feel  themselves  to  be  economically  and 
morally  disfranchised,  and  that  he  that  is  not  for 
them  is  against  them. 


48    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

Therefore  perhaps  the  most  important  measure, 
next  to  the  affirmation  of  the  Social  Creed  of 
the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches,  is  the  recent 
appointment  by  the  President,  prompted  by  the 
appeal  of  thirty  ministers  and  social  workers,  of 
a  Federal  Commission  empowered  to  lay  bare  the 
whole  problem  before  the  eyes  of  the  American 
people.  This  commission  may  make  mistakes, 
but  this  does  not  invalidate  the  principle. 

For  the  situation  is  veiled  in  a  mysterious 
darkness.  If  we  could  only  know  the  real  pro- 
portion or  disproportion  between  dividend  and 
wage,  between  selfishness  and  human  sacrifice ! 
We  want  to  know  why,  when  men  are,  accord- 
ing to  the  common  plea,  "  losing  money,"  they 
maintain  a  status  of  luxurious  living  which  seems 
to  give  their  claim  a  doubtful  cast.  We  want  to 
know  whether  or  not  the  increased  wage  should 
be  the  contribution  of  the  industry  or  the  passing 
of  the  collection  plate  to  the  congregation  of 
consumers  by  the  industrial  diaconate  and  elders. 
Is  it  not  time  for  the  Church  to  say  to  society  in 
the  name  of  her  Master,  "  There  is  nothing 
covered  that  shall  not  be  revealed,  and  nothing 
hidden  that  shall  not  be  made  manifest  "  ?  Her 
sovereign  task  is  to  turn  on  the  light,  no  matter 
what  the  light  reveals. 

Thus  far  we  have  suggested  two  cooperating 
elements  in  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  in- 
dustry— the   moral   leadership  of  the  nation  in 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        49 

the  Church,  and  the  economic  leadership  in  the 
State. 

When,  however,  we  get  close  to  the  particular 
problem,  we  find  not  simply,  as  is  generally  sup- 
posed, the  two  elements  commonly  called  Capital 
and  Labor,  but  rather  four  elements  immediately 
concerned.  We  may  eliminate  two  of  them  from 
the  situation  ideally,  and  earnestly  wish  we  might 
do  so  actually. 

The  first  of  these  consists  of  those  leaders  of 
industry,  wanting  in  sympathy,  whose  spirit  is 
bitter,  whose  selfishness  is  primary,  and  those 
with  them  who,  if  not  moved  by  greed,  are 
blinded  by  economic  fallacies.  I  mean  those 
employers  of  labor  who — sometimes  riotously — 
conspire  together  for  the  covert  or  avowed  intent 
and  purpose  of  crushing  out  of  existence  the 
organization  of  industry,  men  whose  political 
economy  is  that  of  a  sometimes  paternalistic 
feudalism,  which  they  blindly  seek  to  conserve  in 
the  face  of  an  industrial  democracy  chartered  by 
the  very  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  itself. 

The  second  element,  and  equally  to  be 
eliminated,  are  those  leaders  of  labor  who  are 
equally  false  to  this  great  trust,  for  to  worship 
the  Mammon  that  other  men  possess  is  little,  if 
any,  better  than  to  worship  the  Mammon  that  we 
possess  ourselves,  and  labor  has  her  foes  within. 

The  one  element  is  to  be  condemned  equally 
with  the  other.     Anarchy  conspired  and  syndical- 


50    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ism  plotted  in  the  luxurious  office  or  the  sump- 
tuous parlor  of  the  hotel  are  no  better,  if  not 
worse,  than  when  conspired  and  directed  from 
the  dark  room  of  the  saloon.  Here  the  solemn 
obligation  of  the  Church  may  bring  her  to  the 
cross.  Like  her  Master,  she  may  be  betrayed, 
both  by  Judas  and  the  temple  traders,  for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver,  and  by  the  blind  populace,  who 
likewise  cry  that  she  be  crucified,  and  she  may 
find  her  life  in  losing  it  upon  the  cross  between 
two  thieves. 

Having  eliminated  these  two  elements,  we 
come  down  to  two  others — that  saving  element 
among  the  leaders  of  industry,  of  high-minded 
men  with  sympathetic  hearts,  who  are  seeking  to 
extricate  themselves  and  their  fellows  from  the 
toils  of  a  bewildered  economic  system  ;  the  other, 
those  high-minded  leaders  of  labor  who  ought  to 
be  the  copartners  and  colleagues  of  the  other  ele- 
ment and  of  the  Church  itself. 

The  industrial  program  of  the  Federal  Council 
should  become  the  articles  of  faith  of  the 
Chambers  of  Commerce  and  the  Manufacturers' 
Association,  and  not  only  that  of  Labor  and  the 
Church.  Here  is  a  magnificent  chance  for  a 
new  set  of  "  gentlemen's  agreements."  All  it 
needs  is  the  stretching  of  existing  ones,  and 
when  this  is  done  every  preacher  will  be  willing 
to  preach  nothing  but  the  simple  Gospel,  what- 
ever that  is.     The  trouble  with  the  trusts  is  not 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry         51 

that   they  are   too   large.     They  are   not   large 
enough. 

I  speak  of  the  leaders  of  labor.  Do  I  mean 
Organized  Labor  ?  There  is  one  fallacy  which 
should  be  dispelled.  It  is  claimed  that  organized 
labor  represents  only  the  2,000,000  men  who 
compose  its  organization,  but  any  thoughtful 
man  knows  better  than  this.  Is  it  not  clear  to 
any  sane  man  that  we  might  as  well  insist  that 
we  would  discuss  religion  without  recognizing 
the  Christian  Church  as  to  talk  about  the  prob- 
lems of  industry  apart  from  the  collectivism  and 
the  solidarity  of  labor  ?  And  has  not  the  recent 
sad  experience  in  the  city  of  Lawrence  and  in 
New  Jersey  and  Colorado  shown  us  clearly  that 
we  may  take  our  choice  between  the  guidance 
of  Organized  Labor,  with  its  economic  machin- 
ery, as  a  conserving,  constructive,  evolutionary 
agency,  mingling  at  least  light  with  heat,  serving 
not  only  to  incite,  but  also  to  restrain — our  choice 
between  this  and  the  anomaly  of  absolutely  un- 
regulated riot  in  the  very  cause  of  justice  ?  For 
syndicalism  is  here,  not  as  a  vague  and  idle 
threat,  but  as  a  stern  reality.  Instead  of  soli- 
darity and  communal  action  for  the  uplift  of  the 
people,  we  may  have  mankind  destroying  the 
plague  by  burning  down  its  own  house  and 
meeting  social  wrong  by  social  wrongs.  So 
much  for  the  long-sown  seeds  of  our  neglect. 
The    scene    is    shifting.     The   battle-ground  is 


52    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

within  labor  itself,  and  the  crisis  which  is  immi- 
nent will  give  the  Church  the  sovereign  oppor- 
tunity of  all  her  history  to  establish  peace  with 
the  administering  hand  of  justice. 

Why  is  it  that  all  our  moral  leaders  do  not 
see  that  in  such  an  organization  as  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  with  its  magnificent  eco- 
nomic machinery,  the  most  gigantic  economic 
force  of  any  day  or  generation,  we  have,  in  the 
midst  of  our  seething,  threatening  social  unrest, 
one  great  safety  valve,  one  great  conserving,  con- 
structive social  agency,  one  clear  speaking  voice 
amid  the  many  clamoring  tongues,  so  many  of 
which  are 

"  like  infants  crying  in  the  night, 
Like  infants  crying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry," 

one  great  evolutionary  force  that  is,  more  than 
anything  else,  bringing  order  out  of  chaos,  be- 
cause it  mingles  light  with  heat  and  serves  not 
only  to  incite  but  also  to  restrain.  Why  do  men 
not  see  that  these  men  hold  the  destinies  of  our 
human  social  order? 

There  is  surely  one  thing  for  which  the  Church 
cannot  stand.  It  cannot  stand  for  anarchy.  And 
one  definition  of  anarchy  is  that  it  is  the  attempted 
destruction  of  any  fundamental  institution  of  so- 
ciety. In  a  democratic  state,  the  organization  of  la- 
bor is,  by  the  common  agreement  of  statesmen  and 
economists,  one  of  those  fundamental  institutions. 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        53 

It  needs  guidance  ;  it  calls  for  restraint ;  its  meth- 
ods should  be  the  subject  of  most  careful  thought 
and  revision,  but  with  all  its  limitations  this  re- 
mains true,  that  any  group  of  men  who  conspire 
together  for  the  covert  or  avowed  intent  and 
purpose  of  crushing  or  crowding  out  of  existence 
the  organization  of  industry,  are  the  most  dan- 
gerous and  dreaded  group  of  anarchists  in  this 
or  any  other  land. 

Here  then  we  have  three  cooperating  elements 
in  the  situation  ;  and  all  three  of  them — the  State, 
the  high-minded  men  of  Industry,  and  the  true 
leaders  of  Labor — are  to-day  awaiting,  though 
they  know  it  not,  even  though  she  knows  it  not, 
the  moral  leadership  of  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  the  burning,  fiery  furnace  there  is  a 
fourth  form,  and  it  is  like  unto  the  Son  of  Man. 

Among  the  most  significant  utterances  of  recent 
days  is  that  of  the  Commission  on  the  Church 
and  Social  Service  of  the  Federal  Council  in  its 
recent  report  to  that  Council.     It  says  : 

"  This  Commission  has  made  its  approach  in 
its  interest  in  social  and  industrial  questions,  alike 
to  favored  and  unfavored,  to  the  employer  and 
the  employee  equally,  to  the  leaders  of  industry 
as  to  the  leaders  of  labor. 

"  We  bear  glad  record  that  the  response  has 
not  come  only  from  those  who  suffer  grievously 
from  economic  wrong. 

"  We  have  confidence,  therefore,  to  bear  a  spe- 


54    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

cial  message  to  our  Chambers  of  Commerce,  and 
our  Associations  of  Business  Men  and  Industrial 
Directors. 

"  (a)  We  ask  them  to  adopt  openly  and  make 
their  own  our  social  platform  and  all  its  implica- 
tions. We  express  the  profound  belief  that  the 
time  has  come  when  these  organizations  must 
earnestly  and  sympathetically  make  the  problems 
of  the  workers  and  the  people  their  problems. 
We  remind  them  that  they  have  a  tremendous 
power,  which,  if  rightly  used,  could  solve  the 
problems  of  society,  that  the  great  multitude  of 
evils  with  which  the  Church  is  called  upon  to 
contend — the  social  evil,  the  problems  of  the 
welfare  of  the  child  and  the  conservation  of 
womanhood — are  largely  commercial,  are  all 
problems  of  industry  and  business  and  should 
not  only  be  questions  of  moment  on  the  part  of 
the  Church  and  the  organizations  of  social  reform, 
but  matters  of  concern  upon  the  part  of  our 
business  interests,  both  as  composed  of  indi- 
vidual Christian  men  and  as  organizations. 

"(b)  It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  for  the 
Church  to  resort  to  legislation  for  social  uplift. 
It  may  be  better  obtained  by  another  process. 
Should  this  Commission  be  obliged,  for  example, 
during  this  next  Quadrennium,  to  wend  its  way 
among  the  forty-eight  States  of  this  Union,  to 
get  bills  passed  in  their  legislatures  requiring 
that  men  should  have  one  day's  rest  in  seven  ? 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        55 

May  not  the  employers  of  labor  and  the  general 
business  interests  of  this  nation  unite  to  the  end 
that  in  every  calling  and  industry  the  seven-day- 
week  shall  be  abolished  ? 

"  (c)  Upon  those  whose  incomes  are  derived 
from  their  holdings  in  mill  and  mine  we  urge  the 
social  danger  of  absentee  ownership  and  its  grave 
abuses,  and  we  plead  the  full  law  of  human  re- 
sponsibility, reminding  them  that,  in  the  twenty- 
fifth  chapter  of  Matthew,  Jesus'  judgment  was 
pronounced  on  men  and  women  for  the  things 
they  did  not  do. 

"  (d)  We  would  remind  those  to  whom  afflu- 
ence has  come,  whether  by  righteous  or  unright- 
eous means,  that  the  tendency  of  our  day  upon 
the  part  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  to  look 
to  revolution  rather  than  to  the  process  of  evolu- 
tion, for  their  uplifting,  is  largely  caused  by  the 
way  in  which  so  many  of  the  rich  flaunt  their 
riches  in  the  very  face  of  the  poor  and  emphasize 
the  wide  gulf  between  Dives  at  his  table  and 
Lazarus  at  the  gate,  and  to  such  we  commend 
the  teachings  of  Jesus  upon  the  productive  use  of 
wealth. 

"  (e)  We  urge  a  deeper  sense  of  the  value  of 
productive  thought  and  toil  and  wealth.  To 
create,  for  the  benefit  of  all,  is  the  highest  end 
for  the  investment  of  talent,  toil,  and  of  material 
possession.  Hence  every  industrial  and  com- 
mercial enterprise  that  ministers  to  wholesome 


56    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

life  should  be  encouraged  and  honored,  and 
every  device  that  aims  to  secure  something 
for  nothing  should  be  discountenanced  and  con- 
demned. Return  and  reward  are  just,  only  as 
they  measure  their  moral  equivalent,  however  it 
may  be  expressed  in  its  material  terms." 

The  task  of  the  Church  is  to  train,  transform 
and  inspire  such  leaders  of  Industry,  to  guide 
with  sympathy  the  leaders  of  Labor,  and  to  mold 
the  conscience  of  the  State.  But,  again,  is  this 
the  obligation  of  the  Church  ? 

She  must  do  it  or  revise  her  Gospel. 

Let  the  Church  do  it,  or  else  let  her  accept  in 
place  of  her  Lord  an  industrial  master  to  say 
with  outstretched  hands,  ''Suffer  little  children 
to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such 
is  the  Kingdom  of  Mammon." 

Let  the  Church  do  it  or  say  frankly,  "The 
Sabbath  was  not  made  for  man." 

Let  the  Church  do  it  or  answer  her  Master, 
"How  much  is  a  man  better  than  a  sheep?" 
No  better. 

Let  the  Church  do  it  or  get  a  new  higher  critic 
to  cut  out  Dives  and  Lazarus,  and  another  to 
find  that  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  is 
an  interpolation  and  the  Book  of  Luke  a  pseudo 
gospel. 

It  is  one  thing  or  the  other — the  teaching  of 
Jesus  or  the  philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche  ; 
God  or  Mammon  ;  Barabbas  or  Christ. 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        57 

But  is  this  her  task  ?  The  only  time,  perhaps, 
when  Jesus  declared  the  moral  determinance  of 
human  destiny  was  in  the  severe  and  searching 
utterance  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  : 
"  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it,  or  as  ye  did  it  not,  to 
one  of  these,  My  brethren,  ye  did  it,  or  ye  did  it 
not,  to  Me." 

I  read  this  chapter  the  other  evening.  I  had 
just  read  the  latest  word  from  the  Bureau  of 
Labor — thirty-five  thousand  men  killed ;  of  two 
million  injured  in  one  year  in  industry.  A  large 
proportion,  so  the  report  said,  were  preventable 
disasters,  and  I  said  as  I  read  the  chapter :  Two 
million  and  thirty-five  thousand  "  of  these  My 
brethren."  (These  are  not  my  words.  They  are 
the  words  of  Jesus.) 

In  the  factory  the  other  day,  with  its  five  hun- 
dred little  children,  with  less  glow  upon  their 
cheeks  than  that  which  flashes  among  the  ma- 
chinery of  which  they  are  but  a  part — five  hun- 
dred "  of  these  little  ones." 

In  one  industry  in  one  little  town — five  thou- 
sand "of  these  My  brethren,"  working  twelve 
hours  a  day,  and  sometimes  twenty-four  hours, 
seven  days  every  week  ! 

In  the  name,  then,  of  the  churches  of  the  na- 
tion, let  us  proclaim  the  moral  and  spiritual  lead- 
ership of  the  Church,  inspiring  the  State,  mold- 
ing Industry,  guiding  Labor,  until  every  home  in 
our  land,  to  the  last  poor  stranger  that  comes 


58    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

within  our  gates,  becomes  the  abode  of  happiness 
and  health.  Until  the  rushing  wheels  of  in- 
dustry no  longer  drown  the  moans  while  they 
blight  the  lives  of  little  children  as  dear  to  God 
as  your  children  are  and  mine.  Until  woman- 
hood in  the  home  shall  be  a  happy  wifehood 
and  a  sweet  motherhood  that  shall  bear  its  own 
natural  and  sufficient  burdens  without  the  hag- 
gard countenance  of  hunger  of  body  and  of  soul, 
or,  if  in  toil,  shall  have  the  safeguards  of  virtue 
and  health.  Until  manhood,  with  a  toil  that 
does  not  diminish  self-respect,  and  with  leisure 
to  cultivate  the  finer  graces  of  our  human  life, 
shall  all  be  the  answer  to  our  prayer:  "Thy 
kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven, 
so  on  earth." 

But  what  has  this  to  do  with  the  men  and 
women  whom  these  words  reach  ?  We  are  not 
responsible  for  this  situation,  sad  as  it  may  be. 
We  have  rightly  laid  the  blame  sometimes  on 
what  we  have  called  Capital,  sometimes  on  what 
we  have  called  Labor.  Was  that  where  it  be- 
longed? Let  us  read  that  twenty-fifth  chapter 
of  Matthew  again  some  time,  and  if  we  have  not 
been  before,  we  shall  be  profoundly  impressed 
by  this  strangely  severe  and  significant  fact — 
that  the  judgment  of  Jesus  was  there  pronounced 
upon  men  in  every  case  for  the  things  they 
didrit  do. 

As  we  look  out  upon  the  order  of  Industry, 


The  Church  and  Modern  Industry        59 

upon  the  great  ocean  of  democracy,  with  its 
waves  and  billows,  but  also  with  its  splendid 
wide  horizon,  we  need  to  hear  the  call  of  the 
Master  to  those  who  have  fished  and  taken  noth- 
ing, "  Launch  out  into  the  deep  and  let  down 
your  nets." 

Among  the  greatest  of  social  opportunities  be- 
fore the  Christian  Church  is  the  establishment  of 
industrial  justice,  that  a  weary,  wasted  world  of 
toil  may  hear  her  voice :  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest."  The  Church  cannot  fail  to  find  her 
way  into  mill  and  factory  and  mine  and  office,  if 
she  simply  takes  Jesus  at  His  word. 


Ill 

THE  CONSOLIDATION  OF  CONSCIENCE 

WE  are  accustomed  to  recognize  two 
definite  relations  of  human  person- 
ality ;  the  relation  between  the  indi- 
vidual and  God  ;  and  the  relation  between  the 
individual  and  society.  The  security  of  the  first 
is  dependent  upon  the  realization  of  the  second. 
Therefore,  in  morals  and  religion,  our  predomi- 
nating emphasis  is  upon  the  relation  between 
man  and  men. 

Pessimism  is  generally  due  to  limitation  of 
vision  in  time  and  space.  It  is  the  want  of  a 
correct  perspective.  It  is  the  inability  to  cover 
the  entire  field  and  to  see  things  in  their  relations 
and  proportions.  Take,  for  example,  the  alleged 
decline  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  Church 
has  decreased  largely  because  Christ  has  in- 
creased. As  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  extended 
itself  over  the  great  field  of  human  life,  religious 
institutionalism  takes  its  place  as  one  part  of  this 
kingdom.  Attainment  seems  less  because  our 
ideals  are  greater.  We  pursue  a  flying  goal, 
and  the  nearer  we  approach  it  the  farther  off  it 
seems. 

60 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  6l 

So  men  are  pointing  in  despair  to  the  great 
problems  of  our  day  and  tell  us  in  dismay  that 
we  are  increasing  them.  But  why,  for  example, 
our  great  social  tumult?  It  is  because  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  is  passing  by.  The  light  of  His  coun- 
tenance has  shone  upon  darkened  Russia,  and 
the  serf  has  seen  it.  The  wage-earner  in  the 
mills  and  mines  has  seen  Him.  They  have  re- 
ceived from  Him  the  charter  of  their  freedom. 
We  have  our  social  and  industrial  problems  be- 
cause we  have  dared  to  attempt  the  realization 
of  a  Christian  democracy. 

Three  things  are  necessary  to  a  correct  per- 
spective :  the  sense  of  time — on  the  whole  things 
are  better  than  they  were ;  the  sense  of  space — 
diffusion  is  apt  to  be  misleading ;  third,  we  need 
to  take  account  of  the  many  unseen  influences 
and  resident  forces.  The  fact  is,  the  Christian 
Church  as  an  institution  suffers  by  comparison 
with  its  own  creations,  with  the  multitude  of 
other  social  institutions  to  which  it  has  given 
birth.  It  is  because  the  Kingdom  of  God  has 
become  larger  that  the  Church  seems  smaller. 
She  has  lost  by  the  giving  of  herself.  Her 
leaven  is  less  easily  distinguished  because  it  is 
more  widely  diffused.  The  stream  of  the  Chris- 
tian Gospel  has  overflowed  the  banks  of  the 
Christian  Church  and  is  spreading  itself  over  all 
the  valleys  of  human  life. 

Therefore,  that  the  Church  has  lost  her  place 


62     Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

is  the  sublime  tribute  to  her  greatness  and  her 
success.  She  is  becoming  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Many  prophets  and  righteous  men  desired  to 
see  the  things  that  we  see  and  to  hear  the  things 
that  we  hear,  and  saw  and  heard  them  not.  If 
we  look  with  the  eye  of  spiritual  vision  into  the 
fiery  furnace  of  our  moral  social  struggle  we 
shall  behold  there  the  fourth  form,  and  the  form 
is  like  unto  that  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  so  many  of  our  preachers 
losing  their  grip,  letting  their  vision  become  be- 
muddled,  getting  frantic  because  they  mistake 
the  transition  of  temporary  institutions  for  the 
decadence  of  eternal  truth,  wildly  running  to 
one  expedient  after  another,  wasting  their  sub- 
stance in  riotous  experimentation,  mistaking  the 
momentary  splash  for  the  unyielding  billow  ;  in- 
stead of  standing  calm  and  firm  and  strong  in 
an  age  of  outward  transition,  waiting  with  pa- 
tience and  assurance  for  the  sure  returning  tides 
of  God. 

And  yet,  if  there  be  no  abiding  stream  and 
source  there  can  be  no  continuous  flood.  This 
great  moral  social  conscience  must  have  its 
central  dynamic.  We  should  rejoice  in  all  this 
diffusion  and  should  glory  in  a  dispersed  gospel. 
Nevertheless  it  is  also  necessary  to  keep  in  mind 
the  three  elements  of  source,  stream,  and  flood  ; 
the  moral  power  of  the  individual,  the  group,  and 
society. 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience         63 

Let  us  consider  a  second  question.  As  this 
larger  social  conscience  has  developed,  it  has 
raised  the  question  as  to  the  moral  primacy  and 
ultimacy  of  the  individual  or  society.  Is  a  good 
society  made  up  out  of  regenerate  individuals, 
or,  is  a  good  social  organization  necessary  in 
order  to  make  men  good?  Jesus  answered  this 
question  two  thousand  years  ago.  He  was  no 
Hindu  Pundit  drawing  men  away  from  their 
human  and  earthly  environment.  He  was  a 
Hebrew  Prophet  preparing  men  for  a  new  social 
order.  He  spake  to  the  individual,  but  He 
always  spake  to  the  individual  as  a  member 
of  society.  It  is  true  that  there  can  only  be 
brotherhood  where  there  are  brothers.  It  is  also 
true  that  brotherhood  helps  to  make  men  broth- 
ers. A  tainted  atmosphere  never  helped  men  to 
resist  disease. 

My  purpose  is  to  allow  for  both  processes. 
First,  the  moral  conscience  of  the  individual 
creates  the  conscience  of  society.  Second,  the 
social  conscience  also  persuades  and  coerces  the 
apathetic  individual  conscience.  In  the  main, 
however,  my  task  is  to  show  that  the  individual 
and  the  group  are  the  creators  and  the  molders 
of  the  social  order. 

Another  question  of  our  day  is  that  of  author- 
ity. Is  it  subjective  or  objective  ?  is  it  innate  or 
imposed?  At  this  point  some  very  attractive 
theses  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  need  to 


64    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

be  qualified.  Imposed  authority  must  be  given 
its  rightful  place.  It  is  true  that  every  man 
should  follow  his  own  moral  sense.  This  does 
not  mean,  however,  that  he  has  a  right  to  live  as 
though  there  were  no  other  men.  In  part  he 
must  live  by  the  moral  sense  of  other  men  and 
of  mankind.  Israel  did  not  prosper  when  "  every 
man  did  that  which  seemed  right  in  his  own  eyes." 
There  is  always  objective  authority  to  be  found 
somewhere  in  the  process.  This  objective  au- 
thority should  be  the  moral  rule  of  the  strongest 
and  best  conscience.  Thus  conscience  itself  is  in 
part  innate  and  partly  imposed.  Or  if  innate,  it 
is  awakened,  developed,  and  transformed  by  the 
persuasive  power  of  that  which  is  stronger  and 
better.  My  purpose,  therefore,  is  to  declare  the 
imperative  necessity  of  the  imposed  conscience 
and  the  principle  of  the  moral  authority  of  the 
strongest  and  the  best. 

We  have  still  another  fond  term  which  needs 
some  qualification.  We  talk  about  the  "Zeit- 
geist" Men  point  to  great  movements  for 
moral  upliftment  and  say,  "That  shows  the 
spirit  of  the  times."  This  is  a  great  and  true 
idea.  Such  idealism  lends  hope  and  courage, 
and  gives  wings  to  faith.  Nevertheless,  it  will 
not  do  to  fly  too  far  in  advance.  Very  often  we 
let  our  monistic  idealism  have  too  much  play. 
We  should  be  fired  by  a  magnificent  prophetic 
vision.     At  the  same  time  we  need  to  distinguish 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  65 

between  our  vision  of  the  things  that  are  to  be 
and  things  as  they  are.  It  will  not  do  for  us  to 
take  our  highest  ideals  and  generalize  by  calling 
them  "  the  spirit  of  the  time."  The  actual  fact 
is  that  there  are  two  spirits  of  the  time  :  one  of 
them  is  very  good ;  the  other  is  very  devilish. 

One  spirit  of  the  time  is  indicated  by  such- 
gatherings  as  the  Peace  Conference  in  the 
Hague  ;  the  spirit  of  the  time  indicated  by  our 
humane  institutions  and  Civil  Service  ;  our  laws 
against  predatory  wealth  ;  our  prosecution  of 
political  bribery.  But  there  is  another  and  a 
very  different  spirit  of  the  time.  It  is  the  spirit 
of  the  time  indicated  by  the  following  humorous  (?) 
statement  of  a  New  York  business  man  in  the 
subway  the  other  morning.  He  said,  "  The  men 
who  go  down  at  seven  or  eight  in  the  morning 
are  the  men  who  make  things.  We  who  go 
down  at  nine  or  ten  spend  our  energy  in  trying 
to  take  them  away  from  each  other." 

There  is  a  social  conscience.  Yes,  but  there 
are  two  social  consciences.  Some  of  the  news- 
papers have  one  conscience  in  the  editorial  chair, 
and  another  conscience  in  the  business  office. 
Very  frequently  it  is  the  conscience  of  the  busi- 
ness end  that  dominates  the  editorial  utterance. 
There  are  two  rules  of  life,  the  golden  rule  and 
the  rule  of  gold.  Both  are  very  active  and  very 
powerful. 

Thus  monistic  idealism  is  very  good  as  ideal- 


66    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ism.  Pessimism  palsies  the  hand.  But  so  also 
does  looking  at  life  as  though  it  were  an  unhin- 
dered moral  order,  and  failing  to  realize  that  all 
moral  evolution  is  struggle  and  warfare  against 
principalities,  against  powers,  against  the  rulers 
of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places.  So  sometimes  the 
world  looks  like  Paradise  ;  at  other  times  like  an 
Inferno.  There  are  two  social  consciences,  two 
spirits  of  the  time,  and  they  are  in  deadly  con- 
flict. 

Thus  far  I  have  sought  to  intimate  these  three 
propositions  : 

First :  Society  creates  man,  and  man  also 
creates  the  society  that  creates  men.  Second  : 
Both  the  individual  and  social  conscience  are 
amenable  to  the  imposed  moral  authority  of 
other  consciences.  Third  :  The  actual  world  is  a 
clear-cut  dualism,  which  idealism  may  actually 
diminish  but  must  not  idealistically  deny. 

These  propositions  reveal  three  principles  : 

First :  The  moral  power  of  the  individual  and 
the  group  upon  society. 

Second  :  The  right  of  conscience  to  impose  it- 
self. 

Third  :  That  this  effort  to  impose  conscience  is 
the  real  moral  battle  of  society. 

The  history  of  all  moral  movements  has  been 
that  of  the  imposed  conscience.  It  was  the  con- 
science of  Moses  defying  Pharaoh.     It  was  the 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  67 

conscience  of  the  Prophets  exercised  upon  Israel. 
It  was  the  moral  power  of  the  little  group  called 
the  "  Servant  of  Jehovah "  upon  the  Hebrew 
Nation.  It  was  the  conscience  of  Luther  imposed 
upon  Germany.  It  was  the  conscience  of  the 
Abolitionists  finally  imposed  upon  our  Nation. 
All  moral  progress  has  come  in  response  to  the 
demand  for  righteousness  ;  the  insistence  of  the 
moral  authority  of  the  imposed  conscience. 

We  talk  a  great  deal  about  something  which 
we  call  public  spirit.  What  is  it  ?  It  is  always 
the  conscience  of  the  individual  or  of  the  group 
awakening,  moving,  and  dominating  the  people. 
It  is  thus  only  that  the  voice  of  the  people  be- 
comes the  voice  of  God.  We  obtain  moral 
legislation  in  so  far  as  this  public  spirit  demands 
it.  The  judicial  conscience  is  largely  amenable 
to  it.  Fines  and  penalties  are  apt  to  be  small  or 
great,  judicial  authority  is  likely  to  be  stern  or 
lax,  according  to  the  insistence  of  the  demand  of 
the  imposed  conscience. 

The  most  striking  instance  is  that  of  industrial 
betterment.  It  has  been  the  conscience  of  the 
labor  unions  imposed  upon  employers.  It  has 
been  the  unceasing  insistence  of  the  combined 
conscience  of  the  laboring  men  and  a  scanty 
few  who  have  helped  them,  that  has  brought 
about  the  betterment  of  industrial  conditions. 

Sometimes  it  is  thus  the  conscience  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  group  imposed  upon  society. 


68    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

At  other  times  it  is  the  reverse  process,  as,  for 
example,  when  recently  a  minister  who  had  per- 
formed an  unholy  marriage  found  the  conscience 
of  his  church  ready  to  impose  itself  upon  him 
and  reverse  his  moral  decision. 

Thus  the  relation  between  the  individual  and 
the  social  conscience  is  retroactive.  Generally  it 
follows  in  this  order :  First,  the  individual  on  the 
group ;  second,  the  group  on  society  ;  third, 
society  acting  on  the  conservative  individual 
conscience.  All  are  both  primary  and  ultimate. 
All  are  both  cause  and  effect.  We  need  con- 
science as  well  as  consciences,  and  we  cannot 
have  conscience  without  consciences. 

Let  us  next  consider  the  question  as  to  what 
shall  be  the  method  and  the  message  of  the  im- 
posed conscience.  It  is  the  prophetic.  By  what 
manner  of  preaching  shall  it  be  aroused,  com- 
bined, and  imposed  ?  Shall  it  be  the  wrath  of 
God  or  the  appeal  of  the  Divine  affection  ?  Shall 
it  be  by  persuasion  or  compulsion,  bold  denun- 
ciation or  monistic  idealism  ?  Does  the  age  need 
light  or  lightning  ?  The  answer  is,  both.  The 
conscience  which  is  to  impose  itself  must  declare 
itself  in  unmistakable  terms. 

The  ultimate  aim  of  religion  and  faith  is  the 
development  of  moral  character.  But  character 
is  infinitely  more  than  the  outward  deeds  and 
lives  of  men.  It  is  the  state  of  the  heart.  It  in- 
heres in  the   motive*     If,   then,   character   and 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  69 

motive  are  consubstantial  terms,  it  follows  that 
growth  in  character  is  not  only  the  doing  of  bet- 
ter things,  not  only  doing  better  things  in  better 
ways,  but  doing  better  things  in  better  ways  for 
better  reasons.  It  is  growth  in  the  quality  of  in- 
centive. Moral  development  is  transition  from 
lower  to  higher,  from  good  to  better  motives. 
As  there  are  lower  and  higher  attainments  of 
goodness,  so  there  are  lower  and  higher  initial 
persuasions  to  goodness. 

The  message  to  the  man  must  depend  upon 
the  motive  to  be  initially  incited. 

The  two  motives  to  the  beginning  and  pur- 
suance of  a  better  life  are  love  and  fear.  Both 
are  essential  to  imperfect  humanity.  Admira- 
tion and  attainment  of  the  good  has  for  its  re- 
verse side  the  abhorrence  and  fear  of  evil.  The 
motive  of  love  is  the  infinitely  higher.  But  we 
must  take  men  and  our  age  where  we  find  them, 
so  we  do  not  leave  them  there.  We  find  differ- 
ences in  the  natures  of  our  children.  Some,  al- 
most from  the  beginning,  only  need  our  tender- 
ness and  love ;  others  need  a  severity  and 
chastisement  which  true  love  will  not  withhold. 
Only  by  a  judicious  use  of  these  can  they  be 
brought  to  a  moral  state  to  which  love  can  make 
its  last  appeal.  It  is  so  with  God's  older  chil- 
dren. The  motives  to  be  used  in  an  age  depend 
upon  the  character  and  temperament  of  the  age. 

The   generation   to   which   we   are   called   to 


70    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

proclaim  the  truth  is  one  of  appalling  indiffer- 
ence to  the  deeper  issues  of  human  life  and 
destiny.  Men  and  women  are  little  concerned 
about  their  eternal  souls.  It  is  not  an  age  of 
great  and  profound  sense  of  moral  obligation 
and  responsibility,  but  of  easy-going  disregard. 
It  has  little  of  the  spirit  of  humble  confession, 
but  much  of  arrogant  self-complacency.  It 
blindly  refuses  to  tremble  for  itself.  It  is  self- 
satisfied,  with  too  little  capital  for  its  self-satis- 
faction. It  lives  in  time  and  sense,  and  ignores 
eternity  and  spirit.  The  Almighty  is  patronized. 
Jesus  Christ  is  ignored  in  His  divine  Saviourhood, 
His  holy  Church  is  neglected,  and  His  disciples 
and  apostles  condescendingly  tolerated  by  a 
growing  mass  of  men  and  women  who  have  less 
and  less  use  to  make  of  them  or  their  sacred 
message.  They  think  they  can  conserve  an 
adequate  moral  character  and  nature,  and  tell 
themselves  that  they  are  doing  it  without  wor- 
shipping God  or  directly  seeking  His  grace  and 
strength.  It  takes  an  occasion  like  this  awful 
war,  or  some  nearer  local  calamity  to  bring  us 
to  our  knees,  and  to  the  sense  of  our  neglect. 

Ours  is  not  a  serious  age.  In  the  pulpit  itself, 
light-weight  and  flippant  entertainers  have  their 
day.  The  Church  must  minister  amusement 
rather  than  religion.  With  the  sense  of  obli- 
gation the  sense  of  privilege  has  departed,  and 
many   men   and    women,    when   they    come    to 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  71 

church  at  all,  do  it  and  speak  of  it  as  though 
they  were  conferring  a  favor  upon  the  church, 
upon  the  preacher,  and  upon  Almighty  God. 
Heavenly  treasures  are  unsought,  and  material- 
ism rules.  Rich  men  are  fervently  denounced 
by  men  who  are  trying  their  very  best  to  be  rich 
men.  They  have  not  time  to  go  to  church. 
The  family  hearthstone  is  no  longer  a  sacred 
altar,  and  the  father  is  no  more  the  priest  of 
God  in  the  home.  The  mighty  movement,  the 
animation,  the  ceaseless  energy  of  the  time,  is 
in  the  realm  of  material  things  and  to  gain  pos- 
sessions of  the  earth.  There  is  a  correspond- 
ingly growing  apathy  on  the  side  of  religion. 
As  ministers  of  the  Gospel  we  wait  and  long  in 
vain  for  some  one  to  come,  some  time,  to  talk 
with  us  about  some  great,  deep  and  profound 
spiritual  interest.  And  it  grows  difficult  and 
dangerous  to  dare  to  go  to  them.  The  fact  is, 
our  age  is  dangerously  near  the  experiment  of 
trying  to  get  on  without  religion  and  without 
God.  We  are  moving  merrily  on  over  the  sur- 
face of  an  ocean  deep  with  unseen  and  forgotten 
perils. 

Let  me  pause  to  insert  a  word  of  caution. 
Had  I  been  called  to  speak  of  good  things  and 
advances  of  our  time  I  could  have  done  so 
warmly.     But  I  am  now  urging  its  dangers. 

It  is  not  so  much  a  flagrantly  bad,  as  a  loung- 
ing,   careless,    heedless    and     indifferent    time. 


72    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

Men  are  serenely  strolling  over  moral  paths, 
and  gayly  tripping  on  the  edge  of  the  eternal 
solemnities  of  human  life.  The  age  lacks  deep 
moral  force  and  conviction.  It  has  corrected 
some  of  our  fathers'  faults,  but  has  lost  their 
virtues.  It  has  a  gentler-heartedness,  but  it  has 
less  moral  power.  It  has  lost  in  fortitude.  The 
fathers  braved  the  angry  waters  of  an  ocean  for 
the  sake  of  truth  and  religion.  Their  offspring 
will  not  go  to  hear  the  truth  or  seek  religion,  be 
the  Sunday  morning  sky  relieved  by  a  cloud  the 
size  of  their  hand,  and  dare  not,  for  religious 
worship,  brave  an  April  shower.  They  sat  for 
hours  and  listened  with  intellectual  alertness  and 
spiritual  earnestness  to  a  sermon  on  the  attributes 
of  God.  Their  sons  and  daughters  must  have 
sermonettes,  not  more  than  twenty  minutes,  and 
not  too  deep,  profound  or  intellectual. 

If  it  be  true — and  who  will  say  it  is  not  true  ? 
— that  we  are  wanting  in  our  fathers'  virtues, 
is  it  not  altogether  probable  that  we  need  their 
daily  bread,  those  articles  of  faith  which  inspired 
those  virtues  ? 

We  have  sought  thus  far  to  establish  two 
propositions :  i.  The  character  of  the  age  de- 
termines the  motive  to  be  appealed  to ;  2.  An 
easy-going,  careless,  willful  age  needs  a  tone  of 
severity  and  sternness.  And  men  have  drifted 
so  far  that  it  must  be  so  severe  and  so  certain 
and  so  stentorian,  it  must  be  uttered  with  such 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  73 

power  and  conviction,  that  it  will  go  beyond  the 
portals  oi  the  Church  and  reach  the  ears  of  men 
and  women  who  are  dealing  with  the  eternal 
problems  of  human  destiny  and  caring  for  the 
culture  of  their  immortal  souls,  and  worshipping 
their  Creator,  and  thinking  their  great  and  pro- 
found thoughts,  in  their  beds  or  by  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Sunday  newspaper.  I  say  it  with 
profound  conviction  ;  the  age  needs  lightning. 

The  stern,  strong,  earnest  men  of  Puritanism 
have  a  word  to  say  to  us.  First  of  all,  they  had 
some  doctrines.  Their  faith  was  no  indefinite 
and  incoherent  thing.  The  Puritan  said,  "  I  be- 
lieve "  ;  and  when  he  said  it  he  knew  what  he 
believed.  We  hear  a  good  deal  of  foolish  talk — 
It  does  not  matter  what  a  man  believes.  Such 
talk  is  eternal  nonsense.  A  man's  convictions  of 
the  truth  determine  his  manhood ;  and  if  he  has 
no  convictions  he  is  a  characterless  man. 

The  ultimate  article  of  the  Puritan  confession 
was,  I  believe  in  God.  That  belief  was  no  vague 
and  shadowy  thing.  They  believed  in  a  sovereign 
God.  They  believed  in  Almighty  God.  This  is 
the  supreme  article  of  any  faith.  Every  other  is 
but  an  inference  from  it  and  a  corollary  to  it.  It 
determines  the  length  and  height  and  breadth  of 
a  man's  moral  being.  God  !  The  name  has  lost 
its  solemn  sound  and  meaning.  Men  are  too 
busy  to  pray  to  God.  He  is  passed  by.  The 
age  has  outgrown  him.     The  Puritan  believed 


74    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

in  Almighty  God,  Maker  of  all  things,  Judge  of 
all  men,  before  whom  men  were  to  acknowledge 
and  bewail  their  manifold  transgressions  against 
His  divine  majesty,  by  which  they  had  justly  pro- 
voked the  infinite  wrath  and  indignation,  to 
whom  they  repented  and  prayed,  Have  mercy 
upon  us. 

They  sometimes  made  a  very  doubtful  use  of 
the  Scriptures  ;  but  they  used  them.  The  Scrip- 
tures, like  the  Puritanism  that  followed  them, 
speak  with  magnificent  consistency  upon  the 
foundations  of  religion.  Everywhere,  on  every 
page,  from  Genesis  to  Joshua,  from  Judges  to 
Job,  from  Psalm  to  prophet,  from  Matthew  to 
Revelation,  in  every  one  of  Professor  Cheyne's 
Isaiahs,  in  every  Hexateuchal  document,  from 
beginning  to  end,  one  truth  stands  unshaken  as 
the  firmament  itself :  God  is  God.  To  do  His 
holy  will  means  ultimate  blessing;  to  defy  it 
means  disaster  and  death.  Yes,  they  made  some 
slips  of  exegesis  and  some  errors  as  to  date  and 
authorship,  which  they  rejoice  to  have  us  correct, 
and  which  they  would  dare  to  correct  did  they 
live  now.  But  they  got  one  definite,  profound, 
eternal  truth  out  of  their  Bibles.  They  built  a 
nation  on  that  truth.  The  first  word  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  writ  on  Plym- 
outh Rock.  They  wrought  for  liberty  under  its 
impulse.  They  surmounted  the  unsurmountable 
by  its  power.     The  Church  was  against  them. 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  75 

Civil  government  was  against  them.  The  bil- 
lows of  the  ocean  threatened  them.  A  barren 
shore  beckoned  them  to  death.  What  was  the 
source  of  their  fortitude  and  the  mighty  power 
of  their  personality  ?  It  was  their  faith  in  God — 
in  Almighty  God.  He,  and  not  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  ;  He,  and  not  the  sovereign  of 
England ;  He,  and  He  alone,  was  the  ruler  of 
men  and  of  the  universe.  His  law  and  His  law 
alone  determined  right  and  wrong.  They  feared 
Him.  And  it  was  because  they  did  fear  God  that 
they  did  not  fear  anything  else.  They  would 
not  bow  the  knee  to  prince  or  potentate,  because 
they  did  get  on  their  knees  to  the  God  they  ac- 
knowledged. 

This  conception  of  the  absolute,  eternal,  un- 
movable  sovereignty  of  the  Infinite,  and  nothing 
less  than  this,  is  the  ultimate  and  fundamental  of 
a  real  religious  faith.  The  man  is  not  worth  his 
weight  in  dust  who  does  not  stand  in  awe  of 
God.  In  all  history  and  biography,  in  every  age 
and  clime  and  nation,  this  has  been  the  spirit 
that  has  hated  iniquity,  broken  tyranny,  induced 
righteousness,  wrought  liberty,  and  made  men 
worth  making.  And  there  never  was  an  iniquity 
hated  nor  a  tyranny  broken  nor  a  righteousness 
induced  nor  a  liberty  wrought  nor  a  man  worth 
making  made  without  it.  The  commercial  life 
which  is  usurping  every  hour  of  our  day  needs 
to  learn  that  it  cannot  manipulate  and  deal  so  as 


76    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

to  get  ahead  of  God.  In  civic  life  men  must  be 
made  to  realize  that  they  cannot  circumvent  the 
Almighty  and  that  they  cannot  pull  the  wool  of 
demagogism  over  the  eyes  of  the  Infinite ;  that 
when  God  and  truth  seem  submerged  it  is  an 
optical  illusion ;  that  His  all-powerful  hand  is  on 
this  world,  and  He  will  ultimately  bring  things 
to  the  issues  of  His  holy  will.  A  good-for-noth- 
ing god  in  theology  means  good-for-nothing 
prophets  in  the  pulpit  and  good-for-nothing  men 
in  the  pews  and  on  the  street. 

Does  this  conception  deny  the  Fatherhood  of 
God?  No  I  It  is  essential  to  it.  The  father 
who  does  not  rule  his  household  with  his  wis- 
dom, uphold  it  with  his  strong  arm,  and  guide  it 
with  his  love,  is  no  father  at  all. 

This  is  the  real  fundamental  of  any  faith.  Let 
it  be  granted  and  comprehended,  and  the  related 
truths  will  follow  as  certainly  as  source  and  is- 
sue. Theirs  was  no  slipshod  thinking,  no  undi- 
gested truth.  The  inevitable  conclusions  and 
corollaries  were  and  are  momentous  and  of  deep 
concern.  Theirs  was  a  moral  God.  They  were 
moral  beings.  The  first  of  these  deductions  is 
the  sense  of  moral  obligation.  In  the  light  of  a 
God  perfect  in  character,  absolute  in  righteous- 
ness, man  beholds  himself  in  contrast.  He  sees 
and  knows  himself  only  as  he  knows  and  feels 
God.  The  consciousness  of  God  inevitably 
brings  the  sense  of  human  sin.     The  humanity 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  77 

of  our  age  is  forgetting  that  mankind  is  sinful. 
Men  are  inclined  to  be  on  easy  terms  with  them- 
selves.    The    eternal    difference   between   right 
and    wrong   is   evaded   and   ignored.     We  can 
afford  to  dispense  with  "  original "  and  theoret- 
ical sin.     There  is  enough  left  that  is  actual  and 
undeniable.     We   admit  that  there  are  crimes. 
All  else  we  are  prone  to  look  upon  as  infirmities. 
There  is  something  between  the  two.     It  is  sin. 
We  do  wrongs ;  we  do  them  intentionally  and 
volitionally.     We   repeat  them.     We  sin.     We 
are  sinful.     The  sense  of  it  is  the  first  step  to 
holiness.     The  better  men  become,  the  keener  is 
their  consciousness  of  it.     No  saint  ever  lived 
who   did   not   feel   it   deeply.     The  complacent 
self-satisfaction    of    our   generation  needs  hum- 
bling in  the  dust.     The  conception  of  sin  as  an 
offense  against  an  outraged  and  righteously  in- 
dignant God  is  an  unknown,  unheard  and  for- 
gotten thing.     We  must  relearn  the  preaching 
of    it.     This    conception   and   consciousness   of 
God,  with   man's  self-consciousness,  gives  him 
his  relation  to  the  universe  : — GOD — I.     I  live 
under    that    all-seeing   eye.     This    Infinite   de- 
mands righteousness  of  me.     He  sees  my  evil 
deeds  and  knows  my  evil  thoughts,  and  abhors 
them.     He  rightly  demands  confession  of  them 
and   the   substitution  of  repentance,   issuing  in 
good  works. 

Does  this  impair  the  heavenly  Fatherhood? 


78    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

Will  a  true  father  encourage  his  children  in  their 
sin  by  countenancing  it  ?  Is  God  a  seller  of  in- 
dulgences ?  The  Fatherhood  of  God  calls  for 
the  forbidding  of  sin,  and  if  He  ignores  it  He  is 
no  true  Father. 

If  thus  we  follow  the  Puritan  conception  of 
God  and  its  consciousness  of  sin  in  the  light  of 
moral  obligation,  we  are  led  on  by  the  undeviat- 
ing  march  of  law  and  logic  to  another  ancient 
and  much  execrated  doctrine.  The  Puritan 
looked  himself  and  his  sins  squarely  in  the  face. 
He  was  scientifically  exact.  Cause  had  relation 
to  effect ;  acts  had  their  consequences.  He  was 
an  evolutionist  before  his  time. 

Men  ask  indifferently  and  doubtfully  :  Is  there 
a  judgment?  It  is  the  question  of  an  imbecile 
mind.  Do  moral  paths  lead  nowhere  ?  Can 
men  break  laws  without  consequences?  Can 
men  break  eternal  laws  without  eternal  conse- 
quences? Try  it.  There  is  yonder  lofty  column. 
There  is  a  law  called  gravitation.  Break  it,  and 
step  airily  from  the  summit.  To  break  that  law 
means  death.  Has  the  Infinite  been  thus  exact 
in  the  physical  realm  of  law  and  indifferent  in 
the  spiritual  ?  Is  the  material  universe  a  cosmos 
and  the  spiritual  a  chaos  ?  The  age  to  which  we 
are  called  to  proclaim  the  truth  needs  to  be  told 
that  while  it  blinds  itself  to  the  eternal  future,  the 
eternal  laws  of  God  move  to  their  issues  with  as 
certain  and  as  ceaseless  and  eternal  march  as  if 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  79 

men  saw  them.  They  may  hide  their  heads  be- 
neath the  screen  of  the  coverlet,  but  the  light- 
ning does  not  thereby  cease  to  flash  nor  lose  its 
pathway  to  its  mark.  They  may  bury  their  eyes 
in  the  desert  sands,  but  they  do  not  thus  anni- 
hilate the  danger.  The  simple  and  undeniable 
truth  needs  to  be  dwelt  on  that  there  are  two 
ways  and  trends  of  life, — to  ruin  and  to  blessed- 
ness ;  that  every  moral  decision  of  every  moral 
being,  that  every  moral  act  of  every  moral  per- 
sonality, brings  it  nearer  the  edge  or  centre  of  a 
path.  Then  we  must  ask  how,  in  the  light  of 
human  weakness,  in  the  light  of  human  tempta- 
tion, we  can  live  without  ceaseless  prayer  and 
supplication  to  the  infinite  strength  and  grace  ? 
We  are  false  to  ourselves,  and  commit  a  crime 
against  men,  if  we  do  not  tell  them  they  are 
moving,  either  towards  the  heaven  of  a  growing 
life  or  towards  a  day  of  remorse,  by  whatever 
name  we  call  it. 

Will  there  be  a  judgment?  It  is — now. 
Science  dares  to  state  it  for  us  in  appalling 
terms.  It  is  called  the  survival  of  the  fittest — 
correspondence  to  environment.  Philosophy 
calls  it  cause  and  effect.  Judgment  is  but  an- 
other way  of  stating  the  law  of  the  survival  of 
the  morally  fit,  of  correspondence  to  divine  en- 
vironment. The  evangelist  who  warns  men  to 
seek  the  glory  or  to  flee  the  wrath  to  come  is 
but  stating  a  proposition  in  mathematics.     Two 


80    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

lines  going  in  different  directions  will  never 
come  together.  The  doctrine  of  divine  judg- 
ment is  the  simplest  and  most  apparent  of  all 
truths.  It  is  that  every  man  is  free  to  go  as  he 
wills,  and  that  he  will  go  where  he  goes.  He  is 
his  own  witness  and  his  own  judge. 

Are  love  and  fatherhood  impaired  ?  No,  it  is 
essential  to  them.  This  moral  law  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  has  for  its  end  to  produce 
moral  fitness.  It  could  be  produced  no  other 
way.  The  freedom  of  the  human  will  involves 
it.  And  as  moral  fitness  could  be  produced  by 
no  other  method,  so  moral  fitness  never  will  be 
produced  by  any  other  preaching  than  the 
solemn  preaching  of  this  truth.  Would  He  be  a 
Father  if  He  let  His  children  sin  against  them- 
selves? Would  He  be  a  Father  if  He  let  them 
misuse  His  other  children  without  punishment  ? 
The  true  father  wants  his  children  to  be  good. 
To  gain  this  end  he  must,  if  he  be  true,  use 
every  means. 

God  is  so  good  and  loving  that  He  is 
supremely  concerned  for  the  moral  welfare  of 
His  children.  He  wants  them  to  be  righteous. 
He  has  placed  the  barrier  of  retribution  between 
them  and  evil  that  they  might  turn  from  evil. 
Judgment,  retribution,  punishment,  belong  among 
the  evidences  of  love. 

This  brings  us  to  our  final  thought.  The  ulti- 
mate end  is  the  regeneration  and  restoration  of 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  81 

sinful  men  and  women.  There  is  absolutely  no 
other  path  to  it  than  that  of  the  Puritan  faith. 
There  is  no  other  preaching  that  will  accomplish  it 
than  that  of  their  fundamental  doctrines.  The 
awakening  in  the  souls  of  men  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  absolute,  holy  God,  under  whose  all- 
seeing  eye  they  live,  whose  laws  they  cannot 
defy  without  disaster,  who  hates  their  sins,  who 
loves  them  so  deeply  that  He  wants  to  give  them 
the  gift  of  His  own  infinite  righteousness,  and 
has  put  every  obstacle  He  can,  without  intruding 
upon  the  inviolable  solitude  of  their  free  person- 
ality, between  them  and  sin, — this,  with  the  con- 
sequent consciousness  of  sin,  is  the  only  way  by 
which  that  sense  of  need  of  redemption  is  awak- 
ened, by  which  alone  redemption  can  be  gained. 
They  all  stand  or  fall  together. 

The  age  and  generation  call  for  a  solemn, 
searching,  fearless  utterance  of  solemn,  searching 
and  fearful  truths.  The  older  terminology  need 
not  be  used.  We  have  a  vocabulary  better  suited 
to  our  age.  We  have  a  light  that  makes  those 
truths  clearer.  Science  and  philosophy  are  by 
our  side.  They  give  us  analogies  that  are  start- 
ling, and  lend  us  pregnant  and  significant  terms. 
The  Gospel  is  outgrown,  the  Christian  pulpit  is 
superfluous,  the  Church  of  Christ  goes  out  of 
existence  when  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  the 
vocabulary  of  the  pulpit,  and  the  constitution  of 
the  Church  do  not  contain  the  words  GOD,  SlN, 


82    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

Judgment  and  Redemption.  Strong  moral 
manhood  never  was,  never  is,  and  never  will  be 
without  these  conceptions  and  convictions. 

We  need,  in  this  heedless  generation,  to  be 
first  of  all  Isaiahs,  Jeremiahs,  Malachis,  Amoses, 
Hoseas,  to  prepare  the  way  for  Jesus  Christ. 
The  voice  of  the  prophet  is  stilled  in  the  land. 
We  need  to  become  John  the  Baptists  forerun- 
ning the  Redeemer,  with  the  stern  raiment  of 
camel's  hair,  with  strong  leathern  girdles  about 
our  loins,  preaching  in  a  wilderness  of  religious 
indifference,  and  saying,  Repent  ye,  for  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand,  that  men  may 
come  and  be  baptized  of  us,  confessing  their  sins. 
We  must  be  more  than  John  the  Baptists.  But 
we  cannot  be  more  than  John  the  Baptists  until 
we  have  been  John  the  Baptists.  Then,  on  the 
morrow,  looking  upon  the  transcendent  form  of 
the  Son  of  God,  revealing  so  ineffably  the  Father's 
character  and  will  and  love,  we  shall,  with  the  joy 
of  the  Gospel  making  our  voices  to  tremble  in  the 
transformation  of  the  message,  point  suppliant 
and  confessing  sinners  to  the  Lamb  of  God  that 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

We  can  never  save  the  world  and  the  age  to 
which  we  are  called  to  proclaim  the  eternal  laws 
of  God  which  determine  the  eternal  destinies  of 
men,  until  that  world  and  that  age  is  brought  to 
realize  that  it  needs  to  be  saved. 

Thus  men  must  be  told  that  there  is  a  God  in 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  83 

Israel  as  well  as  a  Jesus  in  Nazareth.  We  must 
utilize  the  parable  of  Dives  and  Lazarus  as  well  as 
the  Beatitudes.  In  large  measure  this  must  be 
the  spirit  of  the  imposed  conscience. 

Do  you  answer  that  this  is  not  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  ?  You  have  omitted  one  aspect  of  His  mes- 
sage.    "Wo!"     "Wol"     "Wo!" 

The  important  question  for  us  is,  How  may  we 
relate  this  order  to  the  Christian  Church  and  the 
Christian  ministry  ?  This  is  the  real  problem  of 
Church  and  State.  The  individual  should  be  the 
minister.  The  group  should  be  the  Church. 
Society  is  our  community  and  commonwealth. 

This  is  the  supreme  work  of  the  Church  and 
the  ministry,  to  tell  men  that  they  must  earn 
money  decently  rather  than  endow  with  it  richly  ; 
to  tell  our  business  men  that  their  office  signs, 
"  No  admittance  except  on  business,"  must  come 
down  ;  to  tell  our  employers  of  labor  that  they 
must  estimate  men  vertically  not  horizontally. 
James  Russell  Lowell  said,  "  There  is  enough 
dynamite  in  the  New  Testament  to  blow  all  our 
existing  institutions  to  atoms  if  illegitimately  ap- 
plied." It  is  still  truer  that  there  is  enough 
power  in  the  Gospel  to  transform  our  institutions 
into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  if  legitimately  ap- 
plied. 

It  will  not  do  to  tell  men,  in  general  terms,  that 
they  ought  to  have  a  conscience.  In  large 
measure  the  Church  should  be  their  conscience. 


84    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

In  this  sense  we  should  be  an  authoritative 
Church  and  an  authoritative  pulpit.  Some  Prot- 
estants think  of  the  Church  as  a  kind  of  Masonic 
lodge  and  some  preachers  think  of  their  ordina- 
tion as  a  sort  of  election  as  Worthy  Grand.  If  I 
felt  that  way,  I  think  I  should  frankly  drop  the 
whole  thing. 

We  live  in  the  midst  of  a  magnificent  historic 
opportunity.  Whether  the  issue  shall  be  weal  or 
wo  depends  on  the  last  resort  of  summoning, 
arousing,  combining,  and  imposing  the  great 
latent  moral  forces  in  our  midst.  These  great 
moral  forces  are  in  a  state  of  balance.  The  spirit 
is,  "I  will  if  others  will."  There  are  a  great  host 
of  business  men  who  are  ready  to  turn  either  way, 
and  either  make  a  stand  for  commerical  integrity 
or  give  up  trying  to  be  Christian  men  altogether. 

The  social  conscience  of  society  awaits  the 
group.  The  group  awaits  the  individual.  The 
supreme  question  for  us  is,  Shall  the  Christian 
Church  be  the  group,  the  "  Servant  of  Jehovah," 
the  saving  remnant,  the  moral  leaven  of  the 
nation  and  the  world  ?  The  still  nearer  question 
is  :  Shall  the  personal,  individual,  initiative  force 
be  the  Christian  ministry  ?  Shall  the  Church  be 
the  imposed  conscience  on  society?  Shall  the 
conscience  of  the  prophet  become  the  imposed 
conscience  on  the  Church  ?  Shall  they  both  have, 
first  of  all,  a  great  burning  conscience  them- 
selves?     When   the   eternal   Sovereign   of   the 


The  Consolidation  of  Conscience  85 

universe  would  turn  all  the  great  forces  of  a 
great  age  into  one  great  moral  movement  He 
moves  one  man.  The  man  moves  men.  Thus 
begins  the  great  onward  march  of  a  reformation, 
a  revolution,  and  this  has  been  the  history  of 
every  great  renaissance  that  the  world  has  ever 
known. 

Florence  groans  and  travails  for  her  San 
Marco.  San  Marco  awaits  her  Piagnoni.  They 
in  their  turn  await  the  voice  of  Savonarola.  And 
it  may  be  that  the  Arno  stays  her  flow  to  await 
her  freight  of  smoldering  human  ashes. 

Do  we  not  all  feel  it — the  imminence  of  great 
decision?  Said  a  prominent  business  men  of 
New  York  to  me  the  other  day :  "  When  the 
Church  and  pulpit  enter  definitely  into  the  com- 
mercial and  industrial  problems  of  our  time  they 
take  their  lives  in  their  hands."  In  reply  I  told 
him  the  pathetic  story  related  of  Frederick  W. 
Robertson.  One  of  his  parishioners  sought  to 
stay  the  boldness  of  his  utterance.  "  Mr.  Robert- 
son, you  will  suffer  for  it."  "  I  don't  care." 
"Mr.  Robertson,  you  invite  personal  ruin."  "  I 
don't  care."  "  Mr.  Robertson,  do  you  know 
what  happened  to  '  Don't  care  '  ?  "  "I  do,  He 
was  crucified  on  Calvary." 

We  are  trying  to  find  some  appeal  to  our 
young  men  to  induce  them  to  enter  the  ministry. 
We  have  a  magnificent  chance  for  an  appeal  for 
a  brave  ministrv. 


86    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

"  '  Seest  thou  that  brightness  approaching  us?' 

"  '  I  see  nothing,'  said  Nazarius. 

" '  Some  figure  is  coming  in  the  glare  of  the 
sun.'  Then  Peter  threw  himself  on  his  knees, 
and  this  cry  left  his  lips:  'O  Christ!'  'O 
Christ!'  and  again  'Quo  vadis,  Domine?' 

" '  If  thou  desert  my  people,  I  am  going  to 
Rome  to  be  crucified  a  second  time.' 

"  l  Quo  vadis,  Domine?'  This  time  the  voice 
of  Nazarius. 

"  '  To  Rome,'  said  the  Apostle,  and  he  re- 
turned." 

"Then  Jesus  took  unto  Him  the  twelve  and 
said  unto  them,  Behold  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem, 
and  all  things  that  are  written  by  the  prophets 
concerning  the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  accom- 
plished. 

"  For  He  shall  be  delivered  unto  the  Gentiles, 
and  shall  be  mocked  and  spitefully  entreated, 
and  spitted  upon ;  and  they  shall  scourge  Him 
and  put  Him  to  death  ;  and  the  third  day  He 
shall  rise  again.11 

"  Domine ',  quo  vadis  ?  " 


IV 

THE  FEDERAL  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  A 
SOCIAL  OBLIGATION 

FEDERAL  unity  is  denominationalism  in 
cooperation.  It  is  the  effort  to  adjust 
autonomy  and  corporate  action,  individu- 
ality and  social  solidarity,  liberty  and  social 
adaptation.  According  to  the  classic  definition 
of  Herbert  Spencer,  evolution  is  the  process  of 
passing  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homoge- 
neity to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity  during 
which  the  retained  motion  undergoes  a  parallel 
transformation.  Thus  the  rise  and  existence  of 
denominations,  following  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion, was  an  indication  of  progress  and  not  of 
deterioration. 

A  study  of  history,  however,  reveals  another 
element  in  evolution — namely,  that  it  is  cyclical. 
Progress  is  not  directly  in  one  direction,  it  comes 
through  both  forward  and  backward  movements. 
We  go  a  long  distance  in  one  direction,  we  then 
pause,  and  to  a  certain  point  make  a  return. 
We  then  gather  up  our  renewed  forces  and 
move  on  again. 

In  theology,  we  know  of  thesis  and  antithesis. 
First  we  move  in  the  line  of  one  proposition  ; 

87 


88    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

then  comes  a  proposition  the  antithesis  of  this, 
and  out  of  the  ultimate  blending  of  the  two  we 
find  harmony  and  progress. 

These  various  theories  of  evolution  seem  ap- 
plicable to  our  denominationalism.  We  have 
gone  pretty  far  in  carrying  out  the  proposition 
which  has  resulted  in  the  diversity  of  denomina- 
tionalism. Those  who  hold  to  Rome  have  gone 
equally  far,  in  their  antithesis,  in  the  direction  of 
unity.  Perhaps  we  are  getting,  among  our 
Protestant  denominations,  to  recognize  in  equal 
proportion  the  two  principles  of  evolution  and 
progress  which  we  find  everywhere  in  the  natural 
order — diversity  and  unity. 

Our  various  denominations  and  sects  arose 
largely  from  the  demand  for  freedom,  and 
through  much  suffering  we  found  our  freedom. 
We  are  now  recognizing  as  denominations,  how- 
ever, that  the  highest  freedom  we  possess  may  be 
the  freedom  to  give  up  some  of  our  freedom  for 
the  sake  of  the  common  good.  This  was  the 
kind  of  freedom  to  which  Paul  referred  in  his  dis- 
cussion of  those  denominational  differences  which 
had  already  begun  in  the  Apostolic  Church.  We 
are  ready  to  acknowledge,  without  forgetting 
perhaps  that  in  our  intellectual  expression  of 
truth  we  have  been  of  Apollos  or  Cephas,  that 
we  are  all  of  Christ,  and  that  in  allegiance  to  Him 
we  must  maintain  or  regain  unity  even  in  the 
midst  of  our  diversity.     We  are  following  still 


Federal  Unity  89 

farther  our  denominational  search  for  freedom, 
and  are  seeking  this  highest  freedom  in  our 
modern  movements  towards  Christian  unity. 

For  the  past  century  or  two  we  have  been 
largely  building  up  denominationalism,  and  now 
we  have  discovered  the  severe  truth  of  the  word 
of  Jesus :  "  He  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it, 
and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  and  the 
Gospel's  shall  find  it."  That  is  the  one  text  and 
suggests  the  one  sermon  for  these  thirty  con- 
stituent denominations  of  the  Federal  Council, 
and  for  all  other  Christian  bodies. 

Meanwhile  one  of  the  most  startling  of  modern 
discoveries  is  that  we  have  been  so  sadly  and 
thoughtlessly  wasteful.  We  have  wasted  our 
mineral  wealth,  squandered  our  forests,  and 
allowed  the  mighty  forces  of  our  streams  to  run 
out  into  an  unneeding  sea. 

Worse  still,  in  the  development  of  industry, 
and  by  social  neglect,  we  have  wretchedly  wasted 
our  human  power  and,  as  our  new  legislation 
witnesses,  we  have  been  criminally  prodigal  with 
human  life  itself.  We  have  poisoned,  neglected, 
maimed,  and  mangled  by  our  inefficient  speed- 
ing up,  by  our  twelve-hour  days  and  seven-day 
weeks.  While  we  have  wasted  the  forests  that 
make  the  mines,  we  have  also  wasted  by  thou- 
sands our  human  brothers  in  the  mines,  have 
slaughtered  and  despoiled  our  women,  and  have 
consumed  our  babes  beyond  the  count  of  Herod 


90    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

in  our  suffocated  cities,  while  we  had  half  a  con- 
tinent of  fresh  air.  In  our  commercial  develop- 
ment we  have  sacrificed  innocent  human  life 
upon  its  altar  and  have  given  over  our  little 
children  to  an  industrial  Moloch  saying,  with 
outstretched  iron  arms,  "  Let  little  children  come 
unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the 
Kingdom  of  Mammon."  And  if  we  followers  of 
Christ  are  content  to  disavow  the  blame,  let  us 
remember  that  in  the  same  breath  in  which  the 
Master  said  that  to  neglect  these  little  ones  was 
to  forget  Himself,  He  also  condemned  men,  in  His 
most  severe  and  solemn  utterance,  for  the  things 
they  didrit  do. 

But  these  are  not  an  intimation  of  the  worst  of 
our  dissipations,  and  indeed  these  wastes  have 
been  largely  because  of  a  deeper  and  more 
serious  prodigality.  We  have  let  the  very  light 
within  us  become  darkness,  and  the  saddest  of 
all  has  been  the  waste  of  our  moral  powers,  oui 
finer  emotions,  and  our  religious  enthusiasms, 
through  sectarian  divisions,  denominational 
rivalries,  and  unrestrained  caprice  often  delud- 
ing itself  as  a  religious  loyalty. 

If  our  effort  for  redemption  had  been  given 
more  fully  to  prevention,  we  should  not  now 
stand  trembling,  shamefaced,  and  bewildered  be- 
fore the  results  of  our  own  social  havoc.  Our 
most  serious  profligacy  has  been  the  neglect  to 
cultivate  our  ultimate  power,  the  power  of  our 


Federal  Unity  91 

religious  enthusiasm  and  our  spiritual  impulse, 
because  they  were  neither  socially  concentrated 
nor  socially  interpreted  and  applied. 

Let  us  face  the  facts.  One  of  our  most  im- 
portant Christian  endeavors  is  that  of  our  home 
missions,  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  under- 
taking of  the  conquest  and  the  moral  develop- 
ment of  a  new  nation.  It  was  the  earliest  and 
one  of  the  most  potent  forms  of  social  service  on 
the  part  of  the  Church  and  it  was  the  beginning 
of  a  multitude  of  new  social  movements.  Its 
leaders,  like  Oberlin,  built  roads  and  highways 
for  religion,  and,  like  Marcus  Whitman,  blazed 
the  trails  of  civilization  across  a  continent.  This 
work,  however,  the  Church  has  more  or  less 
recklessly  attempted  without  serious  forethought 
or  prearranged  plan.  Sometimes  it  has  been 
carried  on  in  conflict  between  the  very  forces 
attempting  it,  and  even  when  sympathetic  it  has 
not  been  cooperative.  And  the  result,  time  upon 
time,  has  been  that,  like  the  intrepid  discoverers 
in  the  antarctic  seas,  religious  enterprise  has  per- 
ished within  the  reach  of  plenty,  just  because  it 
was  not  social.  Three  years  ago  the  Committee 
on  Home  Missions  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches  of  Christ  in  America  investigated  the 
state  of  Colorado.  One  hundred  and  thirty-three 
communities  were  found  ranging  in  population 
from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  one  hundred  thou- 
sand souls,  without  Protestant  churches  of  any 


92    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

kind,  one  hundred  of  them  being  also  without  a 
Roman  Catholic  church.  And  they  were  places 
of  deep  need  in  rural  and  mining  sections.  In 
addition  to  these  there  were  four  hundred  and 
twenty-eight  towns  large  enough  to  have  post- 
offices,  but  without  any  churches,  and  whole 
counties  were  discovered  without  any  adequate 
religious  service. 

The  seriousness  of  the  other  problem  of  over- 
lapping is  indicated  by  a  town  of  four  hundred 
people  in  the  same  state  with  four  churches,  all 
supported  by  home-mission  aid,  and  this  but  one 
of  many  like  it. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  there  is  a  relation- 
ship of  cause  and  effect  between  the  revelations 
of  this  investigation  in  Colorado  and  the  recent 
social  disaster  which  has  befallen  that  state.  The 
result  shows  that  the  report  of  the  Commission 
on  Home  Missions  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
prophecy.  The  churches  and  the  religious 
forces  of  Colorado,  as  of  other  states  and  local- 
ities, were  unprepared  to  meet  the  social  situ- 
ation. Neglected  religious  conditions  cannot 
help  breeding  social  injustice  and  wrong-doing, 
and  in  order  to  meet  such  injustice  and  wrong- 
doing the  churches  need  clear  spiritual  vision, 
and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  plain  human  facts. 
Such  situations  utter  the  clear  call  for  cooperation 
and  unity  of  action  by  the  churches. 

This  investigation  was  followed  by  the  Home 


Federal  Unity  93 

Missions  Council  in  fifteen  western  states,  in  what 
was  called  the  Neglected  Fields  Survey.  In  one 
state  seventy-five  thousand  people  resided  five 
miles  or  more  from  a  church.  A  rich  valley 
with  a  population  of  five  thousand,  capable  of 
supporting  fifty  thousand  people,  had  but  one 
church.  In  another  state  fourteen  counties  had 
but  three  permanent  places  in  each  for  worship. 
One  county  in  another  state  had  a  rural  popula- 
tion of  nine  thousand  with  no  religious  ministry 
except  that  supplied  by  the  Mormon  hierarchy. 
Another  county  with  a  rural  population  of  eight- 
een thousand  had  regular  services  in  only  three 
of  its  school  districts. 

And  these  are  but  hasty  suggestions  from  this 
report,  made  within  the  past  two  years.  The 
social  problems  raised  by  home  missions  have 
been  a  determining  factor  in  the  development  of 
Christian  unity. 

One  of  the  finest  expressions  of  our  religious 
enthusiasms  has  been  the  carrying  of  a  Christian 
civilization  to  the  peoples  of  the  earth  and  the 
far-off  islands  of  the  sea.  It  is  safe  to  say,  in 
view  of  the  marvellous  things  accomplished  in 
spite  of  our  divided  forces,  that  had  there  been 
united  or  federated  effort,  a  Christian  society 
would  now  be  spread  in  social  power  over  the 
whole  earth.  But  we  did  not  bring  to  the  infant 
vision  of  the  heathen  a  gospel.  We  brought 
gospels.     At  least  so  it  seemed  to  them. 


94    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

If  we  ourselves  can  see  to-day  the  wrong  of 
our  sad  divisiveness,  what  wonder  that  to  the 
uncultivated  eyes  and  ears  of  the  heathen  it 
looked,  not  like  the  approach  of  human  love, 
but,  as  it  certainly  did  look  to  them,  like  the  ap- 
proach of  those  who  could  not  truly  love  them 
if,  as  it  seemed,  they  did  not  love  each  other  ? 
For  half  a  century  we  went  to  the  East,  not  with 
the  persuasion  of  the  tongues  of  Pentecost,  but 
with  the  confusion  of  the  tongues  of  Babel. 
What  wonder  that  those  who  could  not  learn 
our  language,  and  whose  language  we  could 
not  speak  intelligently,  seemed  to  find  them- 
selves under  the  necessity  of  acquiring,  not  one 
speech,  but  many  new  languages,  in  order  that 
they  might  learn  the  vocabulary  of  our  social 
brotherhood  ? 

If  waste  is  the  cause  of  inefficiency,  surely  we 
demonstrated  it  in  our  approach  to  the  heathen 
world,  and  our  deepest  encouragement  may  per- 
haps be  drawn  from  it,  for  if  they  could  discover, 
as  they  finally  did,  what  we  were  trying  to  say 
in  so  many  confusing  tongues,  how  simple  is 
our  task  when  we  all  come  to  speak  one  lan- 
guage and  make  it  clear  that  we  are  there  upon 
one  holy  mission  ! 

Meanwhile  the  development  of  a  new  and 
complex  social  order  about  us  was  getting  ready 
for  the  call  of  a  persuasive  and  effective  gospel. 
New  foes  were  arising  on  every  hand.     They 


Federal  Unity  95 

were  all  united,  and  we  found  ourselves  facing 
federated  vice,  the  federated  saloon,  federated 
corruption  in  political  life,  federated  human  ex- 
ploitation, and  then  all  these  together  multiplied 
in  one  strong  federation,  the  federation  of  com- 
mercialized iniquity.  All  of  these  were  bound 
together  in  a  solemn  league  and  covenant,  and 
the  reason  they  so  confidently  faced  a  derided 
Church  was  because  they  faced  a  divided  one. 

On  the  one  hand  were  the  federations  of  labor 
and  on  the  other  hand  federations  of  capital, 
girding  themselves  for  their  conflict,  waiting  the 
voice  which  should  speak  with  power  and  influ- 
ence, that  should  quell  their  human  hatreds. 

Problems  of  social  justice  were  looking  to  us 
with  beseeching  voice,  and  we  found  ourselves 
obliged  to  face  them,  or,  worse  still,  to  shun  them, 
with  shame  upon  our  faces  and  with  a  bewildered 
consciousness,  because  we  had  no  common  ar- 
ticulation of  a  code  of  spiritual  principles  or  moral 
laws.  Our  spiritual  authority  was  not  equal  to 
our  human  sympathy,  because  it  was  divided. 

On  all  these  things  we  had  a  multitude  of  voices 
trying  to  express  the  same  consciousness,  but  the 
great  world  of  men  did  not  know  it.  Why  should 
they  know  it  when  we  had  not  found  it  out  our- 
selves ?  We  spoke  with  voices,  but  not  with  a 
voice. 

Very  nearly  up  to  our  own  day  the  Church 
has  faced  united  iniquity  while  there  has  been 


96    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

scarcely  a  city  in  which  it  could  be  said,  in  any 
real  or  serious  sense,  that  its  churches  moved  as 
one  great  force.  And  in  many  a  town  and  rural 
village  we  yet  have  churches  wearying  them- 
selves to  death  in  a  vain  struggle  for  competitive 
existence,  or  suffering  from  that  worst  of  diseases, 
to  be  "  sick  with  their  brothers'  health." 

What  wonder  that  we  have  lost  our  civic 
virtue  !  Why  should  we  not  lose,  not  only  our 
Sabbath  as  a  day  of  worship,  but  also  our  Sun- 
day as  a  day  of  rest  ?  Why  are  we  surprised 
that  we  have  lost  not  only  temperance  laws  but 
also  our  temperate  ways  ?  Why  should  we  be 
astonished  that  with  the  loss  of  these  we  have 
also  lost  our  sons  and  filled  our  houses  of  refuge 
with  our  daughters?  Why  should  we  wonder 
that  the  rich  have  left  us  for  their  unrestrained, 
unholy  pleasure  and  the  poor  because  we  had 
no  united  sense  of  power  of  social  justice  to  re- 
strain an  industry  that  devoured  widows'  houses 
and  that  bound  heavy  burdens  grievous  to  be 
borne,  especially  when  this  was  sometimes  done 
by  those  who  for  a  pretense  made  long  prayers  ? 
What  wonder  that,  with  disintegrated  religions 
which  gave  no  adequate  sense  of  religion,  the 
home  should  lose  its  sacredness  and  the  family 
become  the  easy  prey  of  easy  divorce  and  of 
unholy  marriage  ?  Still  we  went  on  singing : 
"  Like  a  mighty  army  moves  the  Church  of 
God."     And  when  we  came  to  resolve  it  to  its 


Federal  Unity  97 

final  analysis  the  only  trouble  was  that  we  did 
not  sing  together. 

Leave  for  a  moment  the  larger  review  and 
consider  the  work  of  our  individual  churches 
and  the  loss  of  their  constituency.  I  say  the  loss 
of  their  constituency,  because  the  Church  cannot 
be  said  to  gain  or  even  hold  its  own  if  it  simply 
fills  its  vacancies.  Many  churches  have  marked 
time,  year  upon  year,  and  thought  that  they 
were  moving  because  they  kept  their  feet  in  mo- 
tion. The  age  became  a  migratory  one.  Here 
was  a  root  difficulty  in  our  social  disorder.  The 
family  left  one  city  for  another.  It  drifted,  by 
the  necessities  of  industry,  from  place  to  place. 
And  because  we  had  no  provision  for  shepherd- 
ing the  sheep  that  left  one  fold  for  another,  they 
wandered  about  just  outside  some  other  fold.  If 
the  family,  say,  from  one  Baptist  church  moved 
near  another  Baptist  church,  there  was  some 
hope.     But  in  at  least  half  the  cases  they  did  not. 

For  a  study  in  efficiency  visit  the  average  city 
on  a  Sunday  night  and  measure  the  power 
of,  say,  one  thousand  people,  scattered  among 
twenty-five  or  thirty  churches,  when  they  might, 
with  the  contagion  of  human  impact,  be  gathered 
into  one,  with  a  manifold  and  constantly  increas- 
ing power  which,  with  wise  direction,  would  send 
them  back  to  fill  the  empty  churches  whence 
they  came  and  to  become  and  to  exert  a  social 
conscience. 


98    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

As  in  the  home-mission  fields  so  in  our  cities. 
We  have  whole  sections  religiously  dying  and 
socially  decaying  because  they  are  without  any 
churches,  while  other  sections  right  beside  them 
die  because  they  have  too  many  churches  to 
be  supported.  Effective  distribution  is  as  yet, 
in  every  city,  either  an  undiscovered  art  or  at 
best  a  feeble  effort.  Our  rural  communities  are 
in  a  like  situation  because  there  has  been  no 
concert  of  action.  The  so-called  rural  problem 
as  a  social  perplexity  has  arisen  almost  entirely 
from  the  disunity  of  our  religious  forces,  and  we 
might  as  well  admit  it. 

Then,  for  many,  many  years  we  had  fervently 
prayed  that  God  would  open  the  doors  of  the 
heathen  world  and  let  us  in  to  take  care  of  the 
heathen  as  our  inheritance.  God  always  gives 
us  more  than  we  ask ;  and  so  He  not  only  did 
that,  but  He  opened  our  doors  and  poured  the 
heathen  in  upon  us.  When  the  immigrant  came 
he  became,  as  often  as  not,  an  American  patriot 
before  there  was  time  for  him  to  become  an 
American  citizen.  He  assimilated  everything 
except  our  religious  impulse.  He  learned  the 
language  of  our  daily  speech  because  we  have 
only  one  language  to  be  mastered.  But  our  re- 
ligion presented  to  him  too  many  tongues.  And 
why  should  we  wonder  that  he  could  not  dis- 
tinguish between  them  ? 

He  met  centrifugal  forces  which  repelled  and 


Federal  Unity  99 

not  a  centripetal  force  which  might  have  been  an 
irresistible  attraction.  He  found  a  united  democ- 
racy and  he  became  a  part  of  it  the  day  he  landed. 
He  saw  the  unity  of  ideal  in  our  public  schools, 
and  he  made  it  his  own.  And  if  we  had  met 
him  with  a  united  brotherhood  of  the  Church,  he 
would  have  felt  the  mass  impact  of  religion  as  he 
felt  everything  else  and  he  would  have  yielded 
to  it. 

Why  is  it  that  we  have  not  sooner  found  our- 
selves in  all  the  pressing  problems  of  social 
regeneration  ?  It  is  because  we  are  still  dis- 
cussing our  alleged  differences  which  do  not 
exist  except  in  our  discussion.  The  specious 
differentiation  between  personal  regeneration 
and  social  salvation  is  a  divergence  purely  in 
philosophy  and  not  in  fact. 

Then,  too,  witness  our  initial  attempts  at  in- 
tegration. We  began  our  interdenominational 
movements  and  organizations.  It  was  and  it  is 
a  movement  in  the  right  direction,  and  yet  it 
must  be  confessed  that  to-day  one  of  the  greatest 
problems  of  religious  federation  is  the  federation 
of  these  federations. 

Out  of  the  moral  force  of  the  Church  sprang 
our  reform  agencies,  which  were  subject,  not 
only  to  moral  impulse,  but  also  to  human  caprice, 
and  another  of  our  problems  is  the  federating  of 
all  or  the  elimination  of  some  of  these. 

Then  when  we  began   our  federative  move- 


loo    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ments  in  local  communities  we  simply  multiplied 
our  groups.  The  Bible  classes  of  the  community 
were  formed  into  a  federation  ;  also  the  boys' 
clubs,  the  church  temperance  groups,  and  the 
men's  clubs.  The  ministers  separated  them- 
selves off  from  their  churches,  or  assumed  that 
they  were  their  churches,  and  formed  ministerial 
associations,  and  listened  sometimes  to  papers 
on  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  at  other 
times  on  whether  there  were  one  or  four  Isaiahs 
(when  the  political  corrupter  of  the  city  had 
never  even  been  assured  that  there  was  any 
Isaiah  at  all),  but  only  occasionally,  and  not 
with  very  serious  intent,  to  the  common  problems 
of  their  community  life.  We  had  to  begin  this 
way  because  we  were  afraid  of  bringing  the 
churches  themselves  together. 

Every  once  in  a  while,  generally  not  oftener 
than  once  in  four  or  five  years,  the  wave  of 
evangelistic  power  would  strike  the  community. 
The  evangelist  came,  rallied  the  united  forces  of 
the  churches  for  a  week,  then  went  away,  and 
we  strangely  supposed  that  what  it  was  perfectly 
clear  could  be  begun  only  by  united  action  could 
be  kept  up  and  developed  without  it,  and  the 
churches  fell  apart  sometimes  a  little  farther  than 
they  were  before. 

Meanwhile  every  force,  every  movement, 
every  single  group  gathered  to  oppose  the 
Church  was  making  its  common  compact  with 


Federal  Unity  101 

its  common  stock  and  its  evenly  divided  divi- 
dends. 

The  wonder  is  that  we  have  gained  as  much 
ground  as  we  have ;  we  have  here  a  wonderful 
testimony  to  the  power  of  the  Gospel  and  its  un- 
quenchable fire  that  the  light  of  religion  did  not 
go  out  altogether. 

We  give  all  sorts  of  reasons  for  it.  But  it  was 
not  because  we  were  not  thinking  right.  It  was 
not  because  we  were  not  thinking  alike.  It  was 
not  because  we  were  worshipping  differently  or 
because  our  polities  were  different.  It  was 
simply  that  we  did  not  work  and  act  together 
upon  the  tasks  in  which  we  were  in  absolute 
agreement.  We  were  confused  in  our  self- 
consciousness.  We  conceived  our  churches  and 
our  sects  as  ends  in  themselves,  rather  than  as 
the  means  to  the  one  end  that  we  have  always  had 
in  common.  We  remembered  that  we  were  of 
Paul,  or  of  Apollos,  while  we  forgot  that  we  were 
all  of  Christ,  and  that  all  things  were  ours.  We 
were  losing  our  lives  because  we  were  trying  to 
save  them. 

So  much  for  the  facts  of  history.  Let  us  now 
seek  the  vision  of  prophecy.  This  prodigality 
of  moral  power  and  spiritual  impulse  was  not 
because  the  Church  was  becoming  an  apostate 
Church.  It  was  not  because  she  was  leaving  an 
old  theology  or  because  she  was  rejecting  a  new 
one.     Taken  as  a  whole,  her  views  were  becom- 


102    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

ing  larger  and  her  vision  finer.  In  certain  ways 
she  was  creating  greater  forces.  But  her  forces 
were  spent  because  her  attack  on  sin  was  not 
concerted,  and  because  she  was  not  conscious  of 
her  own  inherent  unity.  The  Church  and  min- 
istry went  on  doing  their  unrelated  work,  gaining 
a  keener  moral  sense  and  stronger  ethical  Gos- 
pel. The  Church  and  her  Gospel  were  creating 
the  very  unrest  that  was  crying  out  for  social 
justice.  And  even  while  the  Church  was  losing 
the  toilers  she  was  preparing  for  their  social  eman- 
cipation. She  was  continually  creating  larger 
opportunities  which,  however,  she  was  failing  to 
meet  because  of  her  divided  moral  forces. 

We  now  feel  that  something  very  different  is 
to  be  done. 

It  is  interesting  that  the  first  serious  movement 
towards  federation  was  in  the  foreign  field.  The 
missionaries  began  to  send  back  word  that  they 
could  not  make  their  way  by  using  such  confus- 
ing tongues.  They  sent  imperative  messages 
to  us  that  they  must  get  together,  not  only  in 
order  to  impress  the  Gospel  upon  the  heathen, 
but  for  their  own  self-preservation.  Both  Chris- 
tian unity  and  social  service  are  largely  reflex 
actions  from  the  field  of  foreign  missions. 

Now,  throughout  the  heathen  world,  we  are 
rapidly  multiplying  union  church  movements. 
In  India  we  have  the  South  India  United  Church 
of   nine   different    denominations,   and   another 


Federal  Unity  103 

federation  is  under  way  in  Central  India.  These 
foreign  federal  councils  are  not  being  organized 
on  the  basis  of  common  forms  of  worship,  but 
are  being  grouped  by  the  languages  or  dialects 
which  their  people  speak.  They  are  formed  on 
social  units. 

In  West  China  a  movement  has  in  view  one 
Protestant  Christian  Church  for  that  entire  im- 
portant part  of  the  new  Chinese  Republic.  The 
same  story  is  coming  back  to  us  from  Korea  and 
the  Philippines.  Japan  has  dissolved  its  tenta- 
tive and  voluntary  evangelical  alliance  and  now 
has  an  official  federation  of  eight  denominations. 

Practically  all  of  the  mission  schools  are  interde- 
nominational and  federated.  There  come  to  my 
desk  every  week  something  like  two  hundred  and 
fifty  different  home  religious  publications,  most 
of  them  being,  or  alleging  to  be,  denominational 
organs.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  heathen  field 
their  publications  are  common  and  interdenomi- 
national.    Thus  are  our  little  children  leading  us. 

In  fact,  if  we  should  in  this  country  only  follow 
the  example  of  the  foreign  field,  we  should  make 
progress  that  would  surprise  ourselves.  The 
recent  splendid  call  of  the  republic  of  China  for 
the  prayers  of  the  Christian  Churches  of  China 
and  the  world  is  the  clear  issue  of  a  social 
Gospel. 

The  main  point,  however,  upon  which  we  are 
finding   our  most  common  approach  is  in  the 


104   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

new  emphasis  which  we  are  giving,  because  we 
are  forced  to  give  it,  to  the  nearer  social  problems 
of  our  day.  Here,  at  least,  we  find  no  true  reason 
for  differentiation.  No  one  will  argue  that  there 
are  Methodist  Episcopal  saloons  ;  or  such  a  thing 
as  Baptist  child  labor,  or  Congregationalist  vice, 
or  Presbyterian  sweat-shops,  or  Episcopal  Tam- 
many Halls,  or  Seventh-Day  Baptist  gambling- 
houses. 

Not  only  do  we  thus  find  no  sensible  reason 
for  division,  but  we  have  very  quickly  discovered 
that  we  shall  meet  this  opportunity  in  unity  or 
else  we  shall  not  meet  it  at  all.  Social  regenera- 
tion must  have  a  social  approach.  The  social 
tasks  and  problems  of  a  city  cannot  be  met  by 
any  Church  except  in  common  conference  with 
every  other  Church. 

This  application  of  the  Gospel  to  the  needs  of 
the  world  is  what  is  giving  us  our  unity.  When 
we  get  together  upon  our  common  task,  we  can- 
not help  forgetting,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  the 
things  which  have  divided  us  because  we  find 
ourselves  in  unity  upon  these  two  laws  upon 
which  Jesus  said  the  whole  law  and  the  prophets 
hung,  on  love  to  God  and  love  to  man.  We  are 
facing  our  common  foe  of  commercialized  vice, 
of  human  exploitation  together,  and  we  are  re- 
ceiving abuse.  As  we  stand  side  by  side  it  be- 
comes impossible  for  us  to'do  anything  but  love 
our   fellow-Christians,  and   we   are  willing  that 


Federal  Unity  105 

they  should  make  their  intellectual  expression  of 
religion  according  to  their  own  type  of  mind,  and 
that  they  should  worship  after  their  own  forms 
and  customs. 

We  have  made  another  great  discovery.  We 
have  discovered  (a  few  have  not)  that  evangelism 
and  social  service  are  not  only  inseparable  now 
and  forever,  but  are  one  and  the  same.  In  other 
words,  when  we  get  together  seriously  upon  the 
work  of  social  service  we  find  that  we  are  to- 
gether upon  what  we  thought  was  the  remote 
work  of  evangelism. 

The  evangelist  is  to  proclaim  the  full  father- 
hood of  God — a  God  who  rules  His  household 
with  the  unwavering  hand  of  justice  and  with  a 
heart  of  love.  Thus  the  invocation  of  the  heav- 
ens for  divine  justice  and  the  cry  of  an  infinite 
affection  meet  and  mingle  with  every  human  cry 
that  rises  upward  for  human  justice  or  of  human 
suffering.  A  true  father  will  not  let  his  children 
hurt  each  other,  either  by  malice  or  neglect, 
and  he  does  not  love  the  strong  child  better  than 
he  does  the  weak. 

We  feel  a  deeper  and  more  tormenting  sense 
of  sin,  a  profounder  consciousness  of  the  eternal 
truth,  that  a  sin,  whether  of  indifference  or  intent, 
against  our  brother  or  our  sister  is  an  offense 
against  an  outraged  and  righteously  indignant 
God,  that  social  morals  and  personal  religion 
are  one  and  inseparable  now  and  forever,  and 


106   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

that  God  is  not  a  seller  of  indulgences  at  any 
price. 

The  third  article  of  our  evangelical  message  is 

the  absolute  certitude  of  judgment.     Shall  not 

God  avenge  those  whose  cries  come  up  to  Him 

'day  and  night?     Yea,  speedily  He  shall  avenge 

them. 

The  final  message  is  redemption,  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  individual  in  the  world,  and  through 
him  of  the  world  itself,  and  there  is  no  redemp- 
tion of  either  without  the  redemption  of  the 
other. 

The  Gospel  is  abandoned,  the  Christian  pulpit 
is  superfluous,  the  Church  of  the  living  Christ 
goes  out  of  existence,  when  the  truths  of  the 
Gospel,  the  vocabulary  of  the  preacher,  and  the 
constitution  of  the  Church  no  longer  contain  the 
words  "God,"  "sin,"  "judgment,"  and  "re- 
demption." They  are  capacious  gigantic  words, 
belonging  to  a  vocabulary  that  can  interpret  the 
whole  universe  of  right  and  wrong,  both  indi- 
vidual and  social.  They  are  applicable  to  every 
problem  in  God's  world.  Thus  nearly  all  the 
things  belong  together  that  we  have  thought 
apart. 

In  fact,  we  have  discovered  that  while  we  were 
praying  for  a  revival  of  religion  we  were  really 
in  the  midst  of  what  promises  to  be  one  of 
the  greatest  revivals  that  this  world  has  ever 
known.     Our  present  sensitive  social  conscience 


Federal  Unity  107 

simply  means  that  we  have  a  "second  blessing" 
and  that  we  are  again  passing  through  the  ex- 
perience of  religion.  How  on  earth  can  there  be 
any  jot  or  tittle  of  difference  between  saving  one 
man  at  a  time  or  saving  two  ?  Between  regen- 
erating an  individual  and  sanctifying  a  whole 
city  full  of  individuals  ? 

The  only  difference  between  a  true  social 
evangelism  and  what  we  used  to  consider  by 
that  word  is  that  the  mourners'  bench  and  mercy 
seat  are  full.  We  come,  not  one  by  one,  but  all 
are  kept  on  our  knees  together.  True  social 
service  is  simply  evangelism  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  fold. 

Is  it  any  less  holy  to  crush  out  a  den  of  vice 
than  it  is  to  regenerate  a  vicious  man  ?  Here 
again  our  differences  are  only  in  our  use  of 
terms,  and  not  in  reality  and  fact.  Go  to  com- 
mercialized vice  and  to  industrial  injustice  and 
say  to  them,  "  We  will  make  the  laws  tighter," 
and  they  will  answer,  "  Very  well,  we  will  find 
ways  to  break  them."  Go  and  say  to  them, 
"We  will  make  our  courts  stronger,"  and  they 
will  answer  to  themselves,  if  they  do  not  to  us, 
"  The  political  power  of  our  money  is  stronger 
than  any  court  of  justice." 

But  suppose  you  could  go  to  them  and  say, 
"  The  churches  of  this  city,  all  of  them,  have 
gotten  together.  They  are  thinking,  planning, 
and  moving  as  one  man  to  crush  you."     They 


lo8   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

might  doubt  it;  but  if  they  did  not  doubt  it, 
they  would  fear  it  as  they  have  not  feared  even 
the  Almighty  Himself. 

Now  for  these  common  tasks  we  are  discover- 
ing, faster  than  we  admit  it,  and  we  are  conscious 
of  it  faster  even  than  we  express  it  to  ourselves, 
that  for  these  common  missions  we  require  no 
changes  of  our  symbols  or  of  the  intellectual  ex- 
pression of  our  religious  faith.  We  have  passed 
the  periods  both  of  division  and  of  toleration  and 
we  are  entering  that  of  serious  cooperation. 
While  Christian  unity  as  a  sentiment  is  every- 
where in  the  air,  it  is  taking  perhaps  three  con- 
crete forms. 

The  first  is  that  which  is  expressed  by  the 
hierarchy  at  Rome.  It  is  not  our  purpose  here 
to  discuss  this  form. 

The  second  is  that  which  finds  expression  in 
such  movements  as  the  Christian  Unity  Founda- 
tion and  the  proposed  Conference  on  Faith  and 
Order.  For  that  we  pause  to  offer  a  sympathetic 
prayer  and  to  express  our  hope.  Cooperation 
in  service  must  precede  it,  or  at  least  go  hand  in 
hand  with  it.  Fellowship  and  unity  of  action 
must  not  wait  too  long  upon  it.  We  must  come 
together  for  it  with  enough  mutual  faith  and 
trust  to  believe  that  our  aim  and  work  are 
common. 

There  is  therefore  another  form  of  Christian 
unity  which  is  possible  without  waiting  for  any 


Federal  Unity  109 

conference  on  faith  and  order,  and  which  is 
absolutely  necessary  before  we  can  reach  the 
common  ground  for  any  such  conference.  It 
might  be  called  Christian  unity  at  work.  It  is 
a  unity,  not  to  be  created  so  much  as  discovered 
and  interpreted.  We  already  have  it.  All  we 
need  to  do  is  to  exercise  it. 

God  has  put  into  our  human  order  the  min- 
gling together  of  unity  and  diversity.  While  it  is 
a  unity  on  the  one  hand  which  is  not  uniformity, 
it  must  also  be  diversity  on  the  other  hand  which 
is  not  divisiveness.  I  believe  that  the  movement 
of  which  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America  is  the  most  concrete  expression 
is  an  illustration  of  this  principle  of  progress. 

Federal  unity  is  stronger  and  more  vital  than 
the  first  form  of  unity,  represented  by  the  Vatican, 
because  it  is  unity  with  freedom,  and  because 
unity  is  stronger  without  uniformity  than  with  it. 
The  social  difference  between  the  unity  of  the 
Federal  Council  and  the  unity  of  Rome  is  also 
thus  :  With  federal  unity  the  Church  may  give 
herself  for  the  sake  of  the  world  regardless  of 
what  becomes  of  herself,  she  may  give  herself 
for  the  sake  of  humanity  and  not  for  the  sake 
of  herself ;  while  under  the  unity  of  Rome 
she  is  obliged  first  of  all  to  take  care  of  her 
own  life.  We  must  be  willing  to  save  our  life 
by  losing  it. 

Federal   unity,   however,   recognizes   the  two 


1 1  o    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

principles  of  progress,  differentiation  and  co- 
herence. It  recognizes  that  the  Kingdom  of 
God  does  not  mean  solitariness  on  the  one  hand 
or  uniform  consolidation  on  the  other.  It  is 
simply  genuine  cooperation  without  regard  to 
the  ultimate  result  to  ourselves.  It  is  not  trying 
to  get  men  to  think  alike  or  to  think  together. 
It  is  first  willing  that  the  army  should  be  com- 
posed of  various  regiments  with  differing  uni- 
forms, with  differing  banners,  and  even,  if  neces- 
sary, with  different  bands  of  music  at  appropriate 
intervals,  provided  they  move  together,  face  the 
same  way,  uphold  each  other,  and  fight  the 
common  foe  of  the  sin  of  the  world  with  a 
common  love  for  the  Master  of  their  souls,  for 
each  other,  and  for  mankind.  It  is  unity  with- 
out uniformity  ;  diversity  without  divisiveness ; 
comprehensiveness  not  competition  or  compul- 
sion. 

Such  a  Church  is  absolutely  irresistible.  Ac- 
cording to  Biblical  arithmetic,  if  one  can  chase 
one  thousand,  two  cannot  only  put  twice  as 
many  but  ten  thousand  to  flight ;  and  if  you 
multiply  according  to  this  arithmetic  until  you 
reach  the  twenty  million  Protestant  church 
members  in  this  country,  we  can  gain  some 
estimate  of  what  God  intends  that  we  should  do. 

I  have  discovered,  I  think,  this  interesting  fact : 
that  it  is  possible,  almost  always,  to  get  the 
Churches  into  Christian  unity,  provided  you  can 


Federal  Unity  1 1 1 

prevent  them  from  discussing  Christian  unity. 
I  am  not  asking  men  any  more  to  come  together 
from  the  various  Churches  to  hold  a  conference 
on  the  question  of  Christian  unity.  I  am  willing 
to  talk  with  them  upon  almost  any  other  subject 
but  that.  The  important  thing  is  to  get  them 
together  to  show  them  the  common  social  task 
— a  task  which  absolutely  cannot  be  done  unless 
they  do  it  together — and  leave  them  to  draw 
their  own  inference  as  to  their  duty,  and  as  to 
the  will  of  God  and  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 

I  have  discovered  another  interesting  fact.  If 
you  want  to  have  a  conference  which  will  be 
absolutely  harmonious,  without  bitterness  or 
invidious  utterance,  get  men  to  come  together 
from  just  as  many  denominations  as  you  can, 
like  the  Quadrennial  Council  where  they  met 
together  to  face  the  common  task.  It  is  only 
when  men  and  women  of  one  denomination  get 
together  in  conference  that  there  is  any  serious 
divisive  utterance.  And  the  differentiation  and 
distance  between  the  two  remotest  constituent 
bodies  of  the  Federal  Council  are  less  than  the 
variance  between  the  two  wings  of  any  one  of 
them. 

This  unity  we  already  have.  It  simply  awaits 
its  discovery  and  use. 

When  the  task  is  completed  and  the  Church 
becomes  the  conscience,  the  interpreter,  and  the 
guide  of  the  social  order,  and  when  the  spiritual 


112    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

authority  which  she  possesses  is  translated  into 
one  common  tongue  and  her  voices  become  one 
mighty  voice,  the  gates  of  hell  shall  no  longer 
prevail  against  her,  and  she  will  be  no  longer 
weak  and  helpless  before  the  haggard,  sullen, 
and  defiant  face  of  injustice,  inhumanity,  and 
heartless  neglect,  and  she  will  be  able  to  take 
care  of  all  her  children — and  her  children  are 
humanity. 

Finally  then,  the  creative  work  of  home  mis- 
sions can  be  conceived,  to-day  and  to-morrow, 
only  by  a  Church  with  the  social  vision  and 
impulse,  and  can  be  performed  by  unity  and 
comity. 

And  only  by  these  selfsame  tokens  can  the 
heathen  lands  be  redeemed ;  the  heathen  of 
those  lands  who  come  to  us  to  be  shaped  into 
a  Christian  democracy  ;  the  Christian  Sabbath 
be  saved  ;  the  Christian  home  preserved  in  sacred 
purity  ;  our  boys  delivered  from  the  hosts  of  sin  ; 
our  girls  delivered  from  the  lust  of  men ;  the 
people  redeemed  from  injustice  and  oppression; 
our  evangelism  be  redemptive,  and  the  Christian 
Church  itself  be  saved  from  becoming  atrophied 
and  from  the  contempt  of  the  world  ;  by  an  im- 
mediate sweeping  social  vision  and  an  instant 
sense  of  genuine  and  earnest  unity,  through 
which  and  by  which  only  her  spiritual  authority 
can  make  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  the  King- 
dom of  our  Lord. 


Federal  Unity  113 

It  is  true  that  the  pages  of  federal  unity  are 
not  free  from  interrogation  points.     There  is  one 
comprehensive  answer  to  them.     As  the  writer 
is   called   to    go   from   one   to  the  other  of  the 
Federal    Council's    constituent    bodies   his   one 
message   to   each    is   this :   You   can   trust   the 
other   twenty-nine.     The   day   for    servile    sus- 
picion is  gone.     These  other  brethren  will  act 
with   you   in   united    freedom,    in   united   faith, 
competing  with  you  for  the  finest  of  Christian 
consideration  that  no  principle  held  sacred  by 
their  brethren  be  derided,  violated,  or  impaired. 
Christian  unity  will  come,  not  so  much  by  ab- 
stract process  as  by  concrete  experience  ;  not  by 
asking  whether  or  not  we  shall  come  together, 
but,  at  least  so  far  as  our  Protestant  evangelical 
Churches  are  concerned,  by  coming  together  first 
in  order  to  find  out  whether  or  not  they  should 
come.     It  is  the  call  of  trust  and  faith  and  we 
are  safe  to  heed  it. 

One  thing  is  certain,  as  we  face  the  task  of 
to-day  : — if  the  Church  has  a  social  obligation 
and  opportunity,  if  her  human  sympathy  and 
sense  of  human  justice  are  to  have  a  commen- 
surate spiritual  authority,  if  the  forces  of  iniquity 
are  to  challenge  her  powers  and  be  met,  if  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world  are  to  become  the  King- 
dom of  our  Lord  the  Church  must  unite  her 
scattered  forces. 


THE  NEW  INTERNATIONALISM 

A  Fundamental  in  Religious  Education 

"  r  I    "\WO  men  went  up  into  the  temple  to 
pray ;   the   one   a    Pharisee,  and   the 
R         other  a  publican. 

"The  Pharisee  stood  and  prayed 
thus  with  himself ;  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am 
not  as  other  men  are,  extortioners,  unjust,  adul- 
terers, or  even  this  publican. 

"  I  fast  twice  in  the  week ;  I  give  tithes  of  all 
that  I  possess. 

"And  the  publican,  standing  afar  off,  would 
not  lift  up  so  much  as  his  eyes  unto  heaven,  but 
smote  upon  his  breast,  saying,  God  be  merciful 
to  me  a  sinner. 

"  I  tell  you,  this  man  went  down  to  his  house 
justified  rather  than  the  other;  for  every  one 
that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased  ;  and  he 
that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted." 

One  of  the  great  beauties  of  nature  is  her 
mingling  of  things  unlike  each  other,  each  serv- 
ing the  other's  needs.  This  universal  order,  since 
the  stars  sang  their  morning  song  together,  has 
been  the  blending  of  a  multitude  of  things  which, 
in  our  human  knowledge  of  them,  we  have  set 
apart.     Nature    consists   of    unity   in   diversity. 

114 


The  New  Internationalism  115 

Her  subdivided  kingdoms  exist  only  in  the 
thought  of  man.  She  is  not  like  our  human 
life,  marked  off  into  its  political  states  with  their 
boundaries  and  barriers.  Her  various  systems 
pervade  and  penetrate  each  other.  They  live 
upon  and  by  one  another. 

In  our  human  order  also,  when  we  live  its 
freest  and  most  natural  life,  we  do  not  gather 
ourselves  together  so  much  upon  the  basis  of 
similarity  as  that  of  unlikeness.  The  family  is 
the  highest  type  of  our  mutual  existence  and  it 
is  a  bringing  together  of  the  unlike  and  opposite. 

When,  however,  we  pass  out  from  this  natural 
social  order  of  God  into  the  realm  of  our  artificial 
human  associations,  we  find  this  spiritual  law  per- 
verted and  repressed.  In  God's  order  it  is  the 
unity  of  unlikeness.  Man's  disposition  is  to  bring 
together  by  their  similarities.  The  one  completes 
defect  by  compensation  and  gives  a  real  and  final 
unity.  The  other  takes  one  small  portion,  multi- 
plies it  by  itself,  and  issues  in  a  system  of  inhar- 
monious exaggerations,  so  that  life  has  fallen 
largely  into  the  order  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest ; 
to  him  that  hath  is  given,  from  him  that  hath  not 
is  taken  away  ;  the  weak  become  weaker  and  the 
strong  stronger,  and  the  great  commotion  in  the 
social  order  of  our  day  and  generation  is  the  ef- 
fort to  divert  this  current  which,  in  national  life, 
takes  the  form  of  a  self-deceptive  patriotism,  into 
the  splendid  order  of   democracy.     In  Europe, 


n6   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

the  main  division  is  by  nations  ;  in  America,  by 
classes. 

Each  of  those  nations  is  fighting,  in  others,  the 
very  sins  which  it  has  itself  committed.  Each  is 
fighting  now  a  foe  without,  because  each  failed 
to  fight  her  foe  within.  Newspaper  and  litera- 
ture had  contemplated  this  holocaust,  with  crimi- 
nal levity.  Each  was  unwilling  it  should  come, 
but  not  enough  unwilling. 

All  have,  in  varying  degree,  either  talked  or 
acted  an  arrogant  imperialism,  and  each  has 
constantly  increased  the  suspicions  of  the  other. 
The  nations  have  helped  it  to  come  by  perpet- 
ually reminding  themselves  and  the  others  that 
it  was  "  bound  to  come."  And  in  the  final  judg- 
ment, while  the  guilt  for  certain  immediate  acts 
may  rest  more  heavily  on  one  or  two,  they  will 
all  admit  their  share  of  criminality,  and  on  no 
other  assumption  can  we  hope  for  justice  at  that 
judgment.  And  one  thing  has  been  absolutely 
neglected  by  each  and  all,  although  if  anything 
stands  out  as  the  clear  verdict  of  history,  it  is 
that  no  nation  was  ever  killed  by  guns  and  pow- 
der, but  that  all  who  have  gone  down  have  died 
of  injuries  internal.  Our  statesmen,  some  of 
them,  are  telling  us  that  Europe's  war  is  Amer- 
ica's warning ;  that  we  must  get  ready  and  that 
our  readiness  must  be  very  much  like  that  of 
Europe's  nations ;  that  we  must  do  the  very 
things  that  they  for  thirty   years   have   done. 


The  New  Internationalism  117 

They  tell  us  that  our  chiefest  need  and  our  most 
permanent  defense  and  our  lasting  security  is  a 
battle-ship,  which  costs  millions  of  dollars  and 
takes  many  years  to  build,  but  which  can  be 
blown  to  the  four  winds  with  a  little  torpedo  that 
can  be  made  in  an  hour  and  costs  a  few  dollars. 
But  I  want  to  approach  it  from  another  view- 
point, and  put  the  warning  in  a  different  light. 
They  say  that  we  must  get  more  guns  and  ships 
and  shells.  I  want  to  point  out  a  different  kind 
of  armament.  They  are  dealing  with  one  set  of 
forces.  I  will  try  to  deal  with  another.  And  one 
thing  I  admit,  we  must  have  either  theirs  or 
mine.  Our  nation  must  have  forces  either  ma- 
terial or  moral,  and  the  sober  question  is — which 
shall  they  be?  It  is  either  God  or  mammon,  for 
no  nation  can  serve  two  masters. 

The  duty  of  the  hour  then  for  us  is  to  under- 
stand the  deeper  meaning  of  the  hour's  deeds,  to 
discover  how  they  may  be  the  means  of  ultimate 
regeneration,  to  seek  how  we  may  build  the  new 
and  holy  city,  upon  the  ashes  of  the  old ;  and 
most  of  all  to  ask  ourselves  what  should  be  our 
own  state  of  mind  and  condition  of  heart  at  this 
moment,  when  the  world  has  lost  its  way,  and 
the  civilization  of  centuries  seems  to  be  under 
the  very  curse  of  God  ?  Our  first  duty  is  not  to 
condemn  the  world,  but  to  find  out  how  it  may 
come  again  to  life  and  have  it  more  abundant 
than  before. 


1 18    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

For  let  us  forget  it  not,  far  above  this,  another 
battle  wages,  one  of  whose  armies  may  with  right 
and  truth  appeal  to  God.  Let  us  rise  out  of  this 
conflict  into  the  higher  one,  which  is  not  against 
flesh  and  blood,  but  against  the  spiritual  hosts  of 
wickedness  within  the  heavenly  places  of  our 
own  souls,  the  battle  of  eternal  and  ultimate 
realities  and  ideals. 

Our  President's  call  for  prayer  made  the  deep- 
est moral  impression  in  Europe  of  anything  that 
has  occurred  during  these  past  weary  months. 
Had  he  been  contented  to  upbraid  the  nations  of 
Europe,  or  had  he  but  reproached  them  for  their 
folly,  it  would  have  had  the  opposite  effect.  The 
moral  power  of  his  utterance  was  that  by  which 
he  besought  us  to  humble  ourselves  and  confess 
our  sins,  not  to  express  our  satisfaction  with  our- 
selves. It  will,  therefore,  be  wise  and  well,  in- 
stead of  lamentation  for  the  national  misdeeds 
of  others  to  make  this  the  solemn  opportunity  to 
turn  our  eyes  inward  and  seek,  in  an  inviolable 
solitude  of  our  national  personality,  to  stand  face 
to  face  with  the  divine  reality,  and  having  judged 
our  brothers,  if  we  so  must,  proceed  then  to  judge 
ourselves. 

We  read  the  utterance  of  Europe's  university 
professors,  and  those  of  her  religious  leaders, 
with  unspeakable  depression  because  they  are 
rilled  with  bitterness  and  scorn,  with  reproach 
and   contempt  for  those  who  only  a  few  short 


The  New  Internationalism  119 

weeks  ago  were  their  brethren  beloved.  It 
shocks  our  moral  sense  and  we  lose,  for  the  mo- 
ment, our  faith  in  human  nature.  But  we  must 
not  forget  that  these  brethren  are  not  expressing 
themselves  to  us  at  this  moment.  We  do  not 
see  their  real  hearts.  Such  utterances  at  such 
moments  can  never  be  taken  at  their  face  value. 
They  bespeak  nerves  overwrought  and  minds 
illusioned.  And  who  can  tell ;  might  not  we  our- 
selves be  like  them  were  our  situation  such  as 
theirs  ?  The  best  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  make 
this  primarily  a  day  of  national  introspection. 

For  the  culpability  is  universal.  We  have 
all  assented  to  a  so-called  balance  of  power, 
equipoised  upon  a  sword,  with  bullets  in  the 
scale  for  weights ;  have  all  agreed  to  secret 
alliances  other  than  for  reason  and  justice  ;  all 
share  the  peril  of  the  sword  because  we  have 
taken  the  sword.  The  differences  are  in  degree 
and  not  in  principle  and  kind. 

It  is  becoming  clear  to  us  that  with  the  piling 
up  of  armaments  which  invite  conflict,  and  in 
which  we  have  shared  as  well  as  others,  the 
civilized  world  to-day  has  two  alternatives.  It  is 
either  all  war  or  no  war  at  all.  The  Atlantic  and 
the  Pacific  have  become  very  narrow,  and  we  are 
by  no  means  immune  from  this  alternative. 

The  conflict  over  there  was  no  mere  accident. 
Its  ultimate  causes  are  material  ambition,  selfish 
competition,  unfair  advantage,  suspicion,  the  doc- 


1 20    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

trine  that  might  makes  the  only  right,  the  confu- 
sion of  moral  with  physical  power,  the  ruthless 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  arises  out  of 
a  delusive  philosophy  of  human  life,  a  haggard 
conception  of  racial  relationships,  a  perverted  view 
of  human  progress,  a  constitutional  mistake  in 
education  and  in  training. 

Are  we  free  from  the  danger  of  these  ultimate 
causes  ?  Is  our  inward  social  order,  which  cor- 
responds so  largely  to  that  of  Europe,  as  a  whole 
permeated  by  an  elevating  philosophy  of  human 
life  ?  Have  we  yet  solved,  by  moral  processes, 
the  problem  of  racial  relationships?  Are  we 
dominated  by  the  higher  law  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  for  the  sake  of  the  unfit?  Do  we 
throb  with  the  pulses  of  what  Baroness  von  Sutt- 
ner  has  so  beautifully  called  the  international 
heart  ? 

Even  suppose  we  grant  that,  because  of  our 
newer  and  fairer  opportunity,  we  are  approach- 
ing nearer  to  it  than  the  other  nations  ;  let  us  not 
forget  that  the  nations  of  Europe  are  suffering, 
not  only  because  of  their  immediate  sins,  but  be- 
cause of  their  past  records.  Admit  even  that 
some  one  of  these  nations  is  primarily  at  fault, 
how  about  the  past  conquests  of  the  others  ?  But 
let  us  pursue  the  historical  method  further.  How 
about  our  methods  of  the  past  ?  Let  the  Red 
Man  answer.  And  the  Black  Man.  Yet  with  our 
larger  opportunity,  and  our  more  benign  condi- 


The  New  Internationalism  121 

tions,  if  we  are  not  infinitely  better  than  the  other 
nations  we  are  infinitely  worse. 

Have  we,  as  a  nation,  been  free  from  responsi- 
bility for  the  exploitation  of  the  poor  people  of 
Mexico,  and  have  we  cause  to  wonder  because 
they  do  not  trust  us  and  have  little  confidence  in 
our  benevolent  intentions  ?  The  peoples  of  the 
Far  East  have  had  occasion  to  exercise  great 
patience  with  us,  and  they  have  been  very  for- 
bearing. We  have  sent  others  to  them  than  our 
missionaries.  Our  present  treatment  of  Japan  is 
irritating  to  her  national  sense  of  honor,  and  our 
flimsy  methods  for  the  protection  of  the  aliens  in 
our  midst,  and  who  have  as  much  right  in  our 
midst  as  did  our  own  fathers,  are  things  to  give 
us  pause  and  cause  the  native  hue  of  a  self-glory- 
ing satisfaction  to  become  sicklied  o'er  with  the 
pale  cast  of  humiliating  thought. 

Are  the  militarists  of  America  very  much  bet- 
ter than  any  other  militarists  ?  And  would  not 
more  than  one  of  them,  in  the  same  environment, 
be  readily  transformed  into  a  Bernhardi,  and  are 
not  some  of  our  intellectuals  little  better  than  a 
Treitschke  or  a  Delbriick  ?  Is  it  any  worse  to 
talk  about  a  Slav  peril  than  it  is  to  talk  about  a 
yellow  peril  and  a  black  peril  ? 

Let  us  turn  our  eyes  inward.  We  have  the 
grievous  story  of  that  same  militarism,  only  in 
another  form,  in  Colorado,  whose  reckless  viola- 
tion of  law  and  order  bears  sad  resemblance  to 


122    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

the  breaking  of  international  law  and  order 
across  the  sea  and  which  is  due  to  the  same  in- 
herent cause. 

We  are  by  no  means  free  from  a  false  and 
boasting  patriotism.  Our  people  have  by  no 
means  caught  the  splendid  spirit  of  Mazzini's 
eighteenth  century  appeal  from  the  "  rights  of 
man "  to  the  "  duties  of  humanity.''  What 
would  our  people  do  were  the  occasions  great  ? 
God  only  knows. 

But,  above  all,  witness  the  resemblance  of  our 
internal  class  consciousness  and  self-conceit  and 
contrast  it,  if  it  can  be  really  contrasted,  with  the 
setting  over  against  each  other  of  race  and 
nation  across  the  Atlantic.  Does  ours  not  bear 
sad  witness  to  the  philosophy  of  a  Friedrich 
Nietzsche  ? 

We  are  amazed  at  the  recklessness  and  the 
mad  presumption  witnessed  in  the  desecration  of 
neutral  protection,  and  yet  one  of  our  own  states 
is  at  this  moment  in  danger  of  seeking  the  same 
narrow,  false  self-interest  so  that  our  federal  gov- 
ernment, as  our  Secretary  of  State  regretfully 
admitted,  is  powerless  to  insure  the  inviolability 
of  its  own  sacred  treaties,  and  that  state  and  its 
people  say  they  will  not  wait,  because  the  issue 
is  self-preservation. 

It  is  sad  indeed  to  witness,  in  Europe,  race 
antagonism  and  a  tribal  contempt  crushing  out 
Christian  sympathy  and  love,  but  have  we  within 


The  New  Internationalism  123 

our  borders  a  brotherhood  and  sisterhood  which 
constitutes  a  divine  democracy  ?  I  think  it  was 
a  German  philosopher  who  once  uttered  the 
beautiful  thought  that  religion  was  reverence  for 
inferior  beings.  Have  we  attained  that  height  of 
thought  in  our  estimate  of  other  states  and  races  ? 

We  clearly  recognize  that  no  tranquillity  can 
come  to  Europe  unless  it  be  the  peace  that  comes 
from  justice,  but  yet  within  our  own  land  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  our  people  live  in  a  continu- 
ously armed  truce  and  we  have  here  a  social  and 
industrial  order  still  awaiting  the  peace  of  justice. 

Just  as  the  mills  and  factories  of  Europe  and 
America  too  are  turning  out  weapons  of  hatred 
and  destruction,  so  our  mills  are  manufacturing 
hatred  in  human  hearts  and  our  mines  hide  deep 
in  the  earth  an  injustice  which  is  being  trans- 
formed into  ill-suppressed  violence.  Our  com- 
mercialism is  feasting  itself  on  the  carnage  of 
war.  The  same  malevolent  forces,  the  same 
ultimate  causes,  the  same  specious  philosophies, 
the  same  insane  expedients  are  at  work  with  us 
as  those  which  on  a  larger  scale  are  wrecking 
the  other  continent. 

Perhaps  the  chief  of  all  causes  of  every  kind  of 
warfare  is  the  desire  for  mastery,  the  lust  for 
domination.  We  have  that  same  thing,  except 
that  it  exists  between  classes  instead  of  between 
nations.  Across  the  sea  there  has  been  for  many 
years  a  process  of  unification  of  nations  with  its 


124   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

intensification  of  prejudice  which  has  now  set 
alliance  over  against  alliance  in  deadly  array. 
We  have  the  same  hateful  phenomenon  between 
classes  in  our  midst,  and  the  bombs  beneath  the 
seats  of  our  judges  are  premonitions  of  a  greater 
danger  to  us  than  any  that  may  await  us  from 
without. 

Another  cause  of  the  world  conflict  is  the  rise 
of  submerged  peoples,  and  we  have  here  in- 
undated thousands  struggling  for  air  and  light 
and  freedom  of  opportunity.  If  you  think  this 
is  not  so,  read  a  few  of  the  papers  and  magazines 
published  by  our  organizations  of  labor,  not 
to  mention  some  others,  and  then  read  the 
magazines  published  by  our  industrial  manu- 
facturers. 

We  have  the  dismal  spectacle  of  the  nations 
calling  upon  their  tribal  gods.  We  are  not  far 
from  that  same  individualistic  class  creation  of 
deities.  Great  masses  of  our  people  are  looking 
for  their  uplifting  towards  a  revolution,  while 
our  rich  gaily  flaunt  their  riches  in  the  face  of 
the  poor  and  emphasize  the  wide  gulf  between 
Dives  at  his  table  and  Lazarus  at  the  gate. 

The  real  prophets  in  Europe  have  been  for 
many  years  warning  the  nations  of  their  mad 
materialism.  We  have  the  same  insidious  foe  of 
social  progress  among  us,  and  it  exists  not  only 
in  high  places  but  also  among  the  lowly,  for  to 
worship  the  Mammon  that  other  men  possess  is 


The  New  Internationalism  125 

no  better  than  to  worship  that  which  we  possess 
ourselves. 

The  conflicting,  or  seemingly  conflicting  in- 
terests over  there  have  engendered  and  nurtured 
these  hatreds.  We  have  the  same  supposititious 
conflict  intensifying  the  same  hatreds.  Read,  if 
you  will,  the  recent  address  of  the  president  of 
the  National  Manufacturers'  Association,  or  the 
report  just  from  the  press  of  the  president  of  the 
great  mining  company,  and  then  read  with  them, 
at  the  same  time,  the  record  of  the  same  events 
by  those  who  are  arrayed  in  conflict  against 
them.  Remember  that  these  are  not  isolated 
instances,  that  these  men  are  the  mouthpieces  of 
great  classes  and  masses  of  mankind  upon  whose 
mutual  relations  our  national  life  depends. 

The  over-sea  pronouncements  about  nations 
crushing  each  other  sound  very  much  as  though 
they  might  have  been  made  at  a  dinner  of  a 
great  association  of  manufacturers  held  recently, 
or  at  a  gathering  in  some  dingy  hall  of  their 
open  foes  in  the  world  of  industry. 

We  have  built  up  deliberate  and  powerful 
organizations,  legitimate  when  limited  to  the 
purposes  for  which  they  primarily  exist,  but  in 
fact  devoted  to  the  destruction  of  other  move- 
ments and  bodies  of  men,  equally  to  be  sanc- 
tioned in  their  original  intent,  upon  a  class  basis, 
and  a  class  hatred  as  clear  cut  as  the  shameful 
breach  between  the  striving  nations ;  and  then 


126   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

as  the  issue  of  this,  other  great  assemblages  of 
men  and  women,  so  frantic  in  their  sense  of  de- 
spair that  they  become  industrial  premillennialists 
and  are  agreed  that  the  whole  social  structure 
must  be  destroyed  by  dynamite  and  arson. 

And  these  warring  classes  of  ours  are  as 
ignorant  of  each  other  and  each  other's  inmost 
thought  as  any  nations  divided  by  a  great  wall 
of  China. 

It  is  said  that  one  nation  over  there  is  attempt- 
ing to  convey  its  culture  by  force ;  but  these 
utterances,  whether  or  not  they  represent  that 
nation,  do  not  sound  unlike  some  of  those  giving 
expression  to  our  superimposed  philanthropy  as 
a  substitute  for  human  freedom  and  divine  justice. 
It  is  said  that  one  of  these  nations  proclaims  it- 
self as  the  divine  custodian  of  God's  blessings 
for  the  world,  and  this  sounds  very  much  like 
the  familiar  phrases  of  some  of  our  commercial 
leaders  who  go  farther  than  to  talk  about  what 
they  hilariously  term  their  own  business  and 
piously  profess  a  benevolent,  paternalistic  feudal- 
ism which  denies  democracy,  and  I  suppose  if 
any  of  the  preachers  in  Europe  had  interposed 
they  would  have  been  told  to  keep  close  to  their 
own  business  of  preaching  the  Gospel.  Just  as 
the  militarists  of  Europe  declare  the  pacifists  to 
be  mild  but  dangerous  fanatics,  so  again  and 
again  before  our  face  our  prophets  of  God's  new 
social  order  are  put  to  shame. 


The  New  Internationalism  127 

The  same  principalities,  the  same  powers,  the 
same  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world  are  at 
work  in  one  continent  as  in  the  other,  in  one  be- 
tween its  nations,  in  the  other  between  its  classes ; 
the  poor  people  of  Europe  have  been  betrayed, 
both  by  their  lords  and  by  their  own  social 
leaders,  just  as,  under  the  same  plausible  philos- 
ophy, our  working  men,  misguided  by  feudal 
protectors,  or  by  their  own  false  leaders,  are 
often,  like  Jesus,  crucified  between  two  thieves. 
And  I  am  not  sure  but  what  the  waste  and  want 
by  war  is  under  the  same  specious  system  as  the 
waste  of  strike  and  lock-out  which  are  now 
almost  daily  occurrences  with  us.  And  we  have 
the  discouraging  attempt  of  aspiring  but  mis- 
guided creatures,  seeking  to  destroy  the  social 
plague  by  burning  down  their  own  houses,  be- 
cause we  have  not  shown  them  any  better  way 
of  doing. 

It  is  clear  to  men  of  vision  that  the  old  inter- 
national order  of  Europe  is  absolutely  broken 
down,  and  that  a  new  order  must  take  its  place, 
but  this  is  no  clearer  than  that  the  governing 
powers  of  our  internal  social  life  have  failed  and 
that  a  new  order  must  be  brought  about  either 
by  the  transforming  power  of  a  great  Gospel  or 
else  must  rise  from  out  the  ashes  of  the  old. 

And  the  new  order  must  come,  both  here  and 
there,  by  the  same  great  spiritual  transformation, 
the  appeal  of  a  higher  imaginative  pity,  the  con- 


128   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

servation  of  human  heritages,  the  unwillingness 
that  even  one  of  these  little  ones  should  perish, 
and,  above  all,  by  diverting  all  that  is  high  and 
holy  in  the  fighting  spirit  by  setting  before  the 
eyes  of  men  the  great  moral  equivalents  of  war, 
so  that  mankind's  scarlet  sins  themselves  may 
be  as  white  as  wool,  as  they  shall,  instead  of 
fighting  each  other,  fight  for  each  other,  the 
moral  battles  of  our  humanity  against  disease, 
injustice,  inhumanity,  and  every  subtle  foe  of  our 
common  human  progress.  For  we  have  not  yet 
even  tested,  except  in  a  very  timid  way,  what 
this  newer  humanitarianism  may  do  to  bring 
forth  heroism,  courage  and  endurance,  and  the 
very  wrath  of  man  may  yet  be  made  by  God  to 
praise  Him ;  for  even  now,  down  in  their  hearts, 
as  Ruskin  declared,  men  worship  the  soldier,  not 
because  he  goes  forth  to  slay,  but  to  be  slain. 

We  wonder  at  the  powerlessness  of  the  Chris- 
tian institutions  of  Europe,  with  the  helpless 
Pope  and  the  Protestant  Church  caught  up  in 
the  maelstrom  of  a  pernicious  patriotism,  and 
yet  within  these  past  few  months,  in  Colorado 
and  in  Michigan,  in  the  cities  of  Lawrence  and 
Paterson,  we  have  had  witness  of  the  same  help- 
less Church  and  synagogue.  Just  as  the  Church 
in  Europe  is  futile  because  it  is  bound  to  the 
state,  which  determines  its  social  institution,  so 
the  Church  in  the  United  States  is  fettered  to  a 
false  and  passing  social  status.     As  the  Church 


The  New  Internationalism  129 

in  Europe  is  divided  by  its  racial  hatreds,  so  the 
Church  in  the  United  States  has  as  yet  failed  to 
demonstrate  the  reality  of  any  racial  brotherhood. 
As  the  Church  in  Europe  is  divided  among  itself, 
so  in  our  own  land,  with  our  disintegrated  re- 
ligious forces,  problems  of  social  justice  have 
been  looking  to  us  with  beseeching  voice,  and 
we  have  found  ourselves  obliged  to  face  them, 
or  worse  still,  to  shun  them  with  shame  upon 
our  faces  and  with  a  bewildered  consciousness, 
our  spiritual  authority  not  equal  to  our  human 
sympathy,  because  it  is  so  sadly  divided. 

Remember  that  I  am  given  the  restricted  task 
of  presenting  only  one  side  of  the  picture. 
Thank  God  there  are  great  forces  for  social 
righteousness ;  we  have  the  beginnings  of  a 
great  revival  of  the  Church  and  of  religion  in 
new  and  splendid  terms,  and  the  Church  will 
dare,  so  I  profoundly  believe,  to  appear  as  a 
leader  and  to  express  her  spiritual  authority  in 
our  midst. 

But  let  us  not  fail  to  remember  that  we  are  to 
reckon  with  the  same  demoniac  forces  as  those 
which  have  ruined  Europe.  Let  us  profit  by  the 
sad  example  and  learn  as  a  nation  not  to  ask 
God  to  be  on  our  side,  but  to  pray  with  Lincoln 
that  we  may  be  found  upon  the  side  of  God. 
Let  us  not  forget  that  we  must  purge  ourselves 
in  order  that  we  may  be  ready  to  take  the  great 
part  to  which  God  and  our  age  are  about  to  call 


130    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

us.  Our  age  and  generation  call  for  a  solemn, 
searching,  fearless  utterance  of  solemn,  search- 
ing, and  fearful  truths.  The  greatest  prophet  of 
the  Old  Testament,  without  one  hesitating  utter- 
ance or  deviating  line,  declared  that  the  protec- 
tion and  peace  of  Israel,  in  her  international  rela- 
tions, were  to  be  secured  only  when  within  her 
own  borders  oppression  ceased  and  justice  found 
its  way  to  the  abode  of  her  children,  and  not 
until  then  could  the  sword  be  beaten  into  the 
ploughshare. 

Oh,  if  the  nations  of  Europe  had  only  thought 
less  about  their  foes  without  and  more  about 
their  foes  within  !  We  blame  them  because  they 
are  not  democratic  either  in  form  or  in  fact,  but 
perhaps  there  is  still  greater  danger  to  the  na- 
tion that  has  the  form  without  the  fact ;  that 
raises  hopes  before  its  people  which  it  does  not 
enable  them  to  realize,  and  ideals  before  the 
world,  which  it  sadly  fails  to  demonstrate  within 
itself.  Ours  is  as  yet  a  bewildered  and  confused 
democracy. 

The  nations  are  still  suspicious  of  us.  Japan 
has  an  attitude  of  watchful  waiting.  China  has 
her  alternate  hope  and  doubt,  and  is  mercurial 
in  her  temper  towards  us.  The  little  nations  to 
the  south  are  not  quite  sure  of  us,  and  the  most 
hopeful  sign  of  this  day  and  generation  was  that 
three  of  them  did  try  us  once  and  did  not  find  us 
wanting. 


The  New  Internationalism  131 

We  need  to  arm  ourselves  against  them ;  yes, 
but  we  shall  do  it  best  by  disarming  them  of 
their  doubts  and  their  lingering  suspicions. 
The  unselfish  return  of  China's  indemnity  was 
worth  at  least  one  battle-ship  to  this  nation. 

Justice  is  our  noblest  armor,  but  our  only 
pledge  for  the  nations  of  our  justice  to  them  is 
that  of  our  internal  justice  between  our  own 
peoples. 

The  new  patriotism  will  begin  to  transform  the 
world  when  one  nation  makes  her  own  people 
see  that  to  love  one  people  truly  is  to  love  all 
peoples,  and  that  the  loss  of  a  nation's  honor 
is  infinitely  worse  than  the  loss  of  land,  and  that 
her  service  to  other  states  is  the  measure  of  her 
greatness. 

Mexico  is  really  waiting  to  see  if  we  shall  dis- 
claim and  repudiate,  and  perhaps  bring  her 
exploiters  to  the  mind  of  Zaccheus,  and  whether 
we  shall  send  into  her  midst  the  messengers  of 
light.  And  now  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world  are 
on  us.  It  does  not  yet  know  whether  our  de- 
mocracy is  real  or  specious,  and  whether  the 
whited  sepulchres  without  are  inwardly  filled 
with  dead  men's  bones.  The  eyes  of  God  are 
on  us.  At  this  moment  the  vineyard  is  in  our 
possession  and  it  is  ours  to  say  whether  or  not, 
in  us,  the  parable  shall  be  fulfilled.  But  if  our 
own  house  only  can  be  set  in  order,  we  shall, 
under  the  hand  of  God,  become  the  world's  mes- 


132    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

siah.  By  self-discipline  alone  is  moral  domina- 
tion won  and  the  surest  way  to  protect  ourselves 
without  is  to  purify  ourselves  within. 

And  now,  when  all  else  has  broken  down  and 
the  darkness  about  them  is  so  dense  that  the 
light  cannot  be  mistaken,  let  the  nations  see  in 
us  a  national  greatness  that  rests  upon  the  power 
of  our  ideals,  whose  domination  is  that  of  moral 
power,  which  can  weld  together  divergent  forces 
and  peoples  in  her  midst  by  mutual  interest  and 
affection,  whose  people  have  equal  rights  and 
justice  because  the  strong  help  the  weak,  whose 
patriotism  is  that  of  duty  and  service  rather  than 
of  rights  and  privilege,  a  nation  that  will  rather 
suffer  wrong  than  do  a  wrong,  and  they  will  see 
the  power  of  moral  conquest.  Our  seed  shall 
possess  the  nations  and  make  the  desolate  cities 
to  be  inhabited.  The  nations  shall  come  to  our 
light  and  kings  to  the  brightness  of  our  rising. 

But  it  means,  not  a  few  peace  schemes,  but 
the  fundamental  reconstruction  of  our  national 
ideals. 

Our  brothers  and  our  sisters  across  the  sea 
have  been  trained  and  guided  wrongly  ?  Grant 
it  all !  The  children  of  their  fathers  were  con- 
ceived in  national  sin  and  born  in  racial  iniquity, 
and  the  result  is  international  depravity  ?  Yes. 
But  how  far  is  our  own  better  state  due  to  our 
better  national  morals,  and  how  much  to  our 
more  favored  station  upon  the  map  of  the  world  ? 


The  New  Internationalism  133 

And  what  if  our  children  of  the  next  generation 
should  be  called  to  their  mountain  of  tempta- 
tion ?  Might  not  they  too  fall  down  and  worship 
for  the  sake  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  ? 

Is  our  education,  sacred  and  secular,  ablaze 
with  the  sense  of  social  justice ;  does  it  melt  with 
a  passionate  feeling  of  world  brotherhood,  in- 
finitely tender?  Are  we  imparting  to  our  chil- 
dren the  ineffable  sense,  the  knowledge  and  the 
burning  affection  of  a  kingdom  that  shall  become 
the  sovereign  compulsion  of  their  life,  that  shall 
open  a  way  out  of  human  selfishness,  and  shall 
reduce  the  inherited  effect  of  our  own  wild 
egoism ;  which  shall  lift  them  up  out  of  a  con- 
fused social  conscience  and  the  bewildered  order 
of  our  day  upon  the  height  of  vision,  unclouded 
by  the  mists  of  the  human  conflict  of  our  own 
selfish  interests  ?  Here  is  the  fundamental  prob- 
lem of  religious  education  at  this  moment. 

But,  you  remind  me,  all  these  nations  have 
been  seeking  peace,  or,  at  least,  their  peoples 
wanted  it.  We  have  had  our  conferences  at  the 
Hague,  and  none  should  belittle  them :  And  yet, 
how  pitifully  their  little  programs  of  mitigation 
have  failed  !  We  have  had  within  the  nations 
our  societies  for  peace  and  arbitration,  and  we 
should  not  despise  their  efforts,  but  they  have 
discovered  that  they  were  trying  to  put  new  wine 
into  old  bottles  and  new  patches  upon  old  gar- 
ments.    Their  work  has  not  been  anti-Christian ; 


134   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

perhaps  it  has  not  been  non-Christian,  but  it  was 
not  essentially  and  effectively  Christian.  The 
instruction  of  our  youth  has  not  reached  the 
fundamental  basis  of  all  peace  and  brotherhood. 
The  peace  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  that  of  the  peace  movement.  We 
could  never  imagine  the  Master  urging  the  na- 
tions to  be  peaceful  because  war  would  waste 
their  material  resources.  Norman  Angell,  good 
as  he  is,  and  he  is  good,  is  quite  removed  from 
Jesus.  We  cannot  imagine  Jesus  contenting 
Himself  with  international  laws  for  the  restric- 
tion of  hostile  manoeuvres. 

Every  problem  in  the  world  is  fundamentally 
a  problem  in  education.  The  present  devasta- 
tion of  Europe  is  said  to  be  due  to  three  ele- 
ments ;  the  militarists,  the  aristocracy  and  the 
intellectuals.  It  is  due  far  more  to  the  third  of 
these  than  to  the  other  two.  We  can  never 
make  peace  between  our  classes  at  home,  or 
peace  between  the  nations  abroad,  by  confer- 
ences and  laws  and  resolutions,  while  the  chil- 
dren of  men,  as  students  of  history  both  secular 
and  sacred,  are  impregnated  with  the  belittling 
sense  and  the  trivial  sentiment  of  a  group  mo- 
rality, class  brotherhood,  and  a  false  and  untamed 
patriotism,  with  its  national  and  racial  distinctions. 

If  one-tenth  of  the  time  and  effort  given  to 
peace  parties  and  programs,  conferences  and 
economic  argument  had  been  spent  in  the  pub- 


The  New  Internationalism  135 

lie  school  in  the  study  of  history  and  on  the  Sun- 
day-school curricula,  we  should  not  now  be  the 
unwilling  witnesses  of  a  world  gone  mad.  The 
real  forces  that  have  been  bringing  the  nations 
together  have  been  those  of  individual  and  group 
relationships.  They  have  not  been  statecraft 
and  diplomacy.  The  State  as  we  now  conceive 
it  is  a  fiction  ;  international  law  a  romance,  writ- 
ten on  a  scrap  of  paper.  The  future  must  deal 
with  realities  and  not  with  diplomatic  fable.  If 
when  the  present  carnage  is  over  the  old  order 
of  things  in  international  politics  remains,  the 
future  will  be  worse  than  the  present.  There 
must  not  be  left  one  stone  upon  another.  If  our 
present  conceptions  of  statecraft  and  diplomacy 
with  their  serpentine  ethics,  rubber-soled  steps 
and  tongue-tied  speech  are  maintained,  for  every 
devil  that  we  cast  out  seven  more  will  come  in 
to  occupy  the  house. 

There  is  only  one  Builder  that  can  build  the 
new  temple,  and  He  can  do  it  in  three  days. 

The  Church  has  surrendered  to  economists 
and  jurists  a  leadership  that  belonged  to  herself, 
has  consented  to  a  blind  utilitarianism,  has 
seemed  to  confess  that  the  ultimate  and  the 
eternal  were  something  political  and  legal,  has 
let  the  world  go  mad  with  its  monstrous  ma- 
terialism, shaping  its  political  and  social  economy. 

These  world  forces  cannot  give  the  construct- 
ive, vital    power    for  the  healing  of  the  world. 


136    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

The  nations  must  have  some  power  that  will 
transform  their  feelings,  their  jealousies,  their 
passions,  and  will  open  their  eyes  to  their  poor 
little  racial  distinctions.  The  world  has  forsaken 
the  Master  and  has  yielded  upon  the  mountain 
of  temptation  ;  has  fallen  down  and  worshipped 
for  the  sad  promise  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  devil. 
They  tell  us  that  our  idealism  has  broken  down. 
Speaking  in  a  world  sense,  the  world  has  broken 
down  because  we  stifled  our  idealism.  We  have 
tried  to  leap  the  chasm  by  gradual  procedure. 
Christianity  has  never  yet  declared,  so  that  men 
should  understand  it,  that  God  knows  nothing 
about  races  or  nations,  and  that  the  words  white, 
yellow,  Slav,  Teuton,  and  Anglo-Saxon  are  not 
found  in  the  Divine  vocabulary  ;  for  in  the  speech 
of  the  Infinite  there  cannot  be  Greek  or  Jew,  cir- 
cumcision or  uncircumcision,  barbarian,  Scythian, 
bondman  or  free. 

The  child  must  be  taught  to  feel,  and  to  feel  it 
deeply,  that  the  black  man  at  home  and  the 
black  man  in  Africa  belong  to  the  same  race  and 
state  as  himself;  that  the  yellow  man  in  the 
laundry  and  the  yellow  man  in  the  Far  East  are 
of  his  own  blood  and  live,  not  only  in  the  same 
house,  but  in  the  same  Father's  house.  Not  un- 
til then  will  the  great  mass  of  the  world's  toilers 
shake  off  the  hypnotism  of  statecraft  and  diplo- 
macy, and  witness  the  brotherhood  of  the  world, 
bereft  of  the  commercial  title  "  limited." 


The  New  Internationalism  137 

The  waving  of  an  ensign  will  lose  its  mesmeric 
power.  There  is  no  emblem  in  the  world  that 
has  been  used  to  greater  dishonor  than  the  flag  ; 
and  our  own  Stars  and  Stripes  in  foreign  lands 
and  in  those  of  our  near  neighbors  has  been 
used  to  cover  and  protect  the  infamy  of  private 
exploitation.  It  has  been  used  at  home  and 
abroad  to  hide  God's  sunlight  from  the  eyes  of 
simple,  trusting  men. 

In  their  patriotism  our  children  should  salute 
at  least  two  flags  ;  the  one  that  designates  the 
home  in  which  they  happened  to  be  born,  and 
then  a  new  world-flag  which  shall  signify  every 
race  and  every  nation  and  every  color  of  man- 
kind. 

Our  children  should  be  reminded  at  every 
meal  of  those  from  every  corner  of  the  world  who 
help  to  set  their  table.  An  education  that  draws 
a  meretricious  inspiration  from  past  national 
deeds  or  gaudily  apparelled  misdeeds  instead 
of  from  the  present  is  an  unhealthy  and  infected 
thing. 

In  their  prayers  they  should  be  taught  to  pray 
that  God  shall  preserve  their  nation  from  other 
nations  ;  while  they  should  also  be  taught  to  pray 
that  other  nations  should  also  be  preserved  from 
theirs. 

For  some  reason  or  other  we  have  not  taught 
our  children  that  they  must  love  without  distinc- 
tions of  class,  and  that  they  must  love  all  the 


138   Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

more  those  who  are  the  more  despised.  We 
have  not  told  them  that  they  must  love  and  be 
loyal,  just  as  loving  and  just  as  loyal  to  their 
brothers  and  sisters  in  England,  Germany,  Aus- 
tria, Japan,  and  China,  with  the  same  love  as  for 
America.  We  have  taught  them  in  our  Sunday- 
schools  to  worship  Abraham  of  the  East,  but  left 
them  to  spit  upon  Abraham  of  the  East  Side. 
Jesus  said  that  a  man  must  "  love  his  neighbor 
as  himself,"  and  He  meant  it  for  nations  and 
races  as  well  as  for  individuals. 

The  secular  history  in  our  public  schools,  the 
sacred  history  in  our  Sunday-schools,  has  glori- 
fied conquest  in  the  one  and  glorified  conquest 
in  the  other.  One  of  the  most  solemn  and  sov- 
ereign rights  of  the  child  of  our  day  and  gener- 
ation is  the  right  to  a  social  vision  as  clear  as 
the  face  of  Jesus ;  to  a  national  and  racial  con- 
sciousness, that  shall  sweep  the  world  in  its  affec- 
tion. It  has  been  denied  them,  and  to-day  they 
breathe  the  sense  of  class  distinction.  The  sense 
of  race  prejudice  becomes  their  natural  heritage 
on  every  hand.  Historic  terminology  of  both 
Sunday-school  and  public  school  should  abso- 
lutely wipe  out  in  their  present  connotation  such 
words  as  Anglo-Saxon,  Celt,  Slav,  Teuton,  Latin, 
Mongolian,  Caucasian,  African.  They  should  be 
obliterated  from  the  lexicon  of  youth.  In  our 
public  schools,  in  the  sense  which  they  now 
convey,  we  should  expunge  the  discriminations 


The  New  Internationalism  139 

of  civilized,  semi-civilized,  barbarian,  and  substi- 
tute a  new  distinction  which  shall  be  grounded 
upon  historical  perspective  and  the  principle  of 
relativity  ;  likewise  in  our  Sunday-school  such 
words  as  heathen  and  pagan. 

The  greatest  task  that  awaits  our  experts  in 
education  to-day  is  not  the  insertion  of  a  few 
quarterly  lessons  on  peace  and  good-will,  but  the 
whole  reconstruction,  from  beginning  to  end,  of 
the  teaching  of  childhood  in  the  principles  of  a 
world-wide  brotherhood  that  breaks  down  every 
social  and  political  barrier  that  has  been  created 
by  the  failing  vision  of  man. 

And  so 

"  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies, 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart; 
Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice  ; 
An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 

"  If,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 

Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe ; 

Such  boasting  as  the  Gentiles  use, 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  Law  ; 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 

Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget." 

Let  us  think  with  more  of  affection  than  of 
scorn  of  all  our  misguided  brethren  over  the  sea, 
led  as  lambs  to  the  slaughter,  for  even  though 
we  may  deem  them  stricken,  smitten  and  af- 
flicted of  God,  let  us  not  forget — that  they  bear 
our  griefs  and  carry  our  sorrows,  that  they  are 


140    Christian  Service  and  the  Modern  World 

wounded  for  our  transgressions,  are  bruised  for 
our  iniquities  ;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  is 
upon  them  ;  and  that,  perhaps,  by  their  stripes 
we  may  be  healed. 

Before  we  reach  the  New  Internationalism  we 
must  create  a  New  Nationalism,  and  the  cre- 
ation of  both  must  come,  not  by  the  trivial  sim- 
ulation of  a  neutrality  that  adds  God  and  the 
devil  together  and  divides  by  two,  but  by  a  pro- 
found repentance,  by  a  national  atonement,  by  a 
new  status  in  international  diplomacy,  the  status 
of  unselfish  reconciliation. 

Thus  may  we  fulfill  the  prophecy  of  the  Quaker 
poet: 

"  Thy  great  world-lesson  all  shall  learn, 
The  nations  in  thy  school  shall  sit, 
Earth's  farthest  mountain  tops  shall  burn 
With  watch-fires  from  thy  own  uplit." 


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BIBLE  STUDY,  DEVOTIONAL,  Etc. 

A.    T.    ROBERTSON,  P.P.,  LL.D. 

Studies  in  the  New  Testament 

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REV.    JOSEPH   T.   GIBSON,    P.P. 

JeSUS   ChrisT:  :   The  Unique  Revealer  of  God 

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REV.     GEO.    H.    YOUNG,  M. A.,  AuH  Prof.  Rhetoric  and  Public 

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PROF.  HUGH  BLACK 

The  New  World 

i6mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"The  old  order  changeth,  bringing  in  the  new."  To  a  re- 
view of  our  changing  world— religious,  scientific,  social — Hugh 
Black  brings  that  interpretative  skill  and  keen  insight  which 
distinguishes  all  his  writings  and  thinking.  Especially  does  he 
face  the  problem  of  the  present-day  unsettlement  and  unrest 
in  religious  beliefs  with  sanity  and  courage,  furnishing  in  this, 
as  in  other  aspects  of  his  enquiry,  a  new  viewpoint  and  clari- 
fied outlook. 

S.  P.  GORDON 

Quiet  Talks  on  John's  Gospel 

As  Presented  in  the  Gospel  of  John.  Cloth,  net  75c. 

Mr.  Gordon  halts  his  reader  here  and  there,  at  some  pre- 
cious text,  some  outstanding  instance  of  God's  tenderness, 
much  as  a  traveller  lingers  for  refreshment  at  a  wayside 
spring,  and  bids  us  hearken  as  God's  wooing  note  is  heard 
pleading  for  consecrated  service.  An  enheartening  book,  and 
a  restful.  A  book  of  the  winning  Voice,  of  outstretched 
Hands. 

ROBERT  F.    HORTON,   P.P. 

The  Springs  of  Joy  and  Other  Addresses 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"Scholarly,  reverent,  penetrating,  human.  The  product  of 
a  mature  mind  and  of  a  genuine  and  sustained  religious  ex« 
perience.  The  message  of  a  thinker  and  a  saint,  which  win 
be   found  to  be  very  helpful." — Christian  Intelligencer. 

BISHOP  WALTER   R.    LAMBUTH 

Winning  the  World  for  ChrisT: 

A  Study  of  Dynamics.  Cole  Lectures  for  1915. 
l2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

This  Lecture-Course  is  a  spirited  contribution  to  the  dy- 
namics of  Missions.  It  presents  a  study  of  the  sources  of  in- 
spiration and  power  in  the  lives  of  missionaries,  native  and 
foreign,  who  with  supreme  abandon  gave  themselves  utterly 
to  the  work  to  which  they  were  called. 

FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON,    P.P. 

The  New  Personality  and  Other  Sermons 
i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

Mr.  Shannon,  pastor  of  the  Reformed  Church  on  the 
Heights,  Brooklyn,  is  possessed  of  lofty  ideals,  is  purpose- 
ful, more  than  ordinarily  eloquent  and  has  the  undoubted 
gifts  of  felicitous  and  epigrammatic  expression.  This  new  vol- 
ume by  the  popular  preacher  is  a  contribution  of  distinct  value 
to  current  sermonic  literature. 


PROBLEMS  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE,  Etc. 

1   '  ■      ■      ~  i      i  '     ■■  ■  r  aasa 

FREDERICK   LYNCH,    P.P.  Secrttary  Church  Piact  UnUn 

The  Last  War 

A  Study  of  Things  Present  and  Things  to  Come. 
i2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

"A  passionate  and  intelligent  plea  for  world  peace.  It  is 
sane,  thoughtful,  well  balanced  and  convincing.  Shows  that 
the  Christian  churches  have  a  duty  to  perform  at  this  crisis 
in  the  world's  history." — Watchman-Examiner. 

PETER  AINSL1E,  P.P. 

Christ  or  Napoleon- Which  ? 

A  Study  of  the  Cure  for  World's  Militarism  and 
the  Church's  Scandal  of  Division.    i2mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

"A  searching  and  powerful  answer  to  this  question.  It 
shows  how  that  divided  Christianity  is  a  failure  and  how  even 
the  church  itself  is  penetrated  by  the  roots  of  this  military 
spirit.  Mr.  Ainslie  is  always  a  pleasing  and  interesting 
writer  and  he  has  fully  met  every  expectation  in  this  book. 
It  will  do  you  good  to  read  his  splendid  message." — Louisville 
Herald. 

SIPNEY  L.  GULICK,    P.P. 

The  Fight  for  Peace 

i2tno,  paper,  net  30c;    cloth,  net  50c. 

"A  valuable  and  comprehensive  text-book  on  the  subject  of 
securing  world  peace  by  means  of  the  advocacy  of  Christian 
principles  by  the  churches.  Many  facts  are  given.  Correct 
principles  are  stated.  Earnest  appeals  are  made.  A  well- 
written  little  volume." — Herald  and  Presbyter. 

NEWELL  P WIGHT  HILLIS,  P.P. 

Studies  of  the  Great  War 

What  Each  Nation  Has  at  Stake.    Cloth,  $1.20  net. 

"Dr.  Hillis'  volume  will  rank  at  once  with  the  best  of 
those  already  available  from  his  pen.  He  would  not  have 
Germany  crushed;  he  would  have  it  simply  restrained  to  its 
proper  field  of  development.  So  with  the  other  nations.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  complete  summation  of  the 
facts  of  the  history,  progress  and  present  position  of  all  the 
nations  involved  than  in  this  volume." — The  Continent. 

PROF.  FRANKLIN  HENRY  GIPPINGS 

The  Western  Hemisphere  in  the 
World  of  To-morrow 

i2mo,  boards,  net  35c. 

The  professor  of  Sociology  and  History  of  Civilization  in 
Columbia  University,  addresses  himself  to  the  problem  of  the 
future  as  it  specifically  relates  to  America.  He  examines  her 
traditions,  heritage,  ideals  and  program,  and  proceeds  to  out- 
line her  possible  place  and  influence  in  the  reconstructed  world 
of  to-morrow. 


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